Moviegoers were apparently able to look past the fact that Matt Damon is not in "Bourne Legacy," as the film is currently on track for a $45 million-ish weekend, buoyed by a strong Friday start of $16-18 million, THR reports.
"The Campaign" also performed well, besting expectations to pull in $10-11 million on Friday for a weekend of up to $30 million.
In a recent interview with HuffPost Entertainment, Damon, the star of all the first three Jason Bourne films, said massive frustration and a delayed script were to blame for his absence in "Legacy."
"It took years off of our lives," Damon said of the toll filming "The Bourne Ultimatum" took out of him and director Paul Greengrass. "Without question. The amount of stress that we were under and it was just nonstop for nine months -- in a kind of semi-panic. It was just a sh-tty feeling. He turned to me on day 100 of the last Bourne movie we did -- and we are really good friends -- and he just finally shook his head and he said, This just isn't fun. And it wasn't."
Over at Deadline.com, Nikki Finke notes that Saturday's reports are a good sign for the domestic box office. "All Friday I hadn’t heard Hollywood this encouraged about the domestic box office since 'The Avengers' or 'Ted' opened," she writes. "Let’s face it: Every studio this summer is making the vast majority of money off the international grosses. So to have North America back in business was helping mop up mogul flopsweat."
Rounding out the top three is "The Dark Knight Rises," which dialed up another $5.8 million on Friday. Sony's Meryl Streep film "Hope Springs" took fourth and "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" jumped into number five. "Total Recall" was a distant sixth.
