Published 3/2/2008
by The Huffington Post News Team
at Entertainment on HuffingtonPost.com
Will Ferrell's latest sports comedy ran afoul of moviegoers and is on track to become one of his worst performing movies, according to preliminary sales data issued on Saturday.
"Semi-Pro," in which the comedian plays the flamboyant owner of an underdog team in the now-defunct American Basketball Association, opened at No. 1 with estimated earnings of $5.45 million on Friday, tracking firm Box Office Mojo said.
It is on track to earn about $14 million for the Friday-to-Sunday period, based on the multiples for his last two sports spoofs, 2007's "Blades of Glory" and 2006's "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby." Industry observers had expected "Semi-Pro" to open above $20 million for the weekend.
That would make it his worst opening since the $13.4 million start for the quirky black comedy "Stranger Than Fiction" in November 2006. But that movie opened on 2,264 theaters, while "Semi-Pro" is in 3,121 theaters.
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