6TH UPDATE, 1:39PM Figures updated following 1pm post: More numbers came in, and the industry averages show that it’s not so much a dead heat yet between Fox/Lightstorm’s Alita and Warner Bros.’ Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (two reports showed a near No. 1 4-day finish of $27M). Now, it’s looking like she has the upper hand with $27M over Second Part‘s $25.5M during the Friday-Monday stretch, respective 3-day is $22.9M to $20M.

Alita is looking at $7M Friday, -18% from yesterday while Lego Movie 2 is clocking a second Friday of $4.5M. Over in Japan (the movie doesn’t open there this weekend), we’re hearing that fans are watching Alita previews as many as 4x. 5-day run for Alita stateside currently stands at $35.7M. Families are continuing to flock to Second Part is what’s going on here.

New Line’s Isn’t It Romantic is looking at third with a 3-day of $10.9M, 4-day of $12.7M, off a $3.4M Friday. Six-day total is projected at $18.9M.

The second weekend of Paramount’s What Men Want is standing on top of Universal/Blumhouse’s Happy Death Day 2U, which everyone assumed would be the one to fuss Alita. Turns out not with the latter drawing $6.5M 3-day, $7.7M 4-day to Men’s respective $9.3M and $10.9M over the same period. Cume by Monday for Men looks to be $36.1M while HDD2U should count $11.4M over six days.

MGM’s Fighting With My Family has a current raw gross near $30K with four NYC and LA locations. Business is +19% from the same time yesterday. Pic made $35K yesterday. It goes wide next weekend.

5TH UPDATE, FRIDAY AM: Alita: Battle Angel came in $200K higher than expected with an $8.7M first day (that includes $2.4M previews) to win the Valentine’s Day box office. We also hear that the Robert Rodriguez directed-Fox/Lightstorm produced sci-fi pic notched an A- CinemaScore and that PostTrak exits rose to 4 1/2 stars (which is great). We’ll see if the Cameron/Rodriguez fans can carry this film to higher numbers against the critics. We saw that back in October with Sony’s Venom where the Marvel/Spider-Man lovers (B+ CinemaScore) bested critics who stepped on the pic with a 29% Rotten Tomatoes score. If Fox gets Alita to $40M by Monday, I hear they’ll be quite happy internally, however, given the pricetag on this movie at $170M, it needs so much more cash. By the way, Blade Runner 2049, another novel sci-fi pic that was challenged at the box office (despite being based on a cult fave 1980s IP), grossed $40.7M in its first five days over Columbus Day weekend, also off an A- CinemaScore. Blade Runner 2049, which cost well north of $155M, finaled stateside at $92M, and didn’t send shockwaves abroad with $167.1M.

First overseas week for Alita is at $36M.

Distributors and exhibitors love Valentine’s Day. Business for nine of the pics in the top 10 outside Alita jumped on average 120% from Wednesday. Great night.

New Line’s Isn’t It Romantic took second-place bragging rights with $4.4M yesterday, +143%, and a two-day cume of $6.2M. Hopefully the movie clears $20M-plus by Monday. Another comedy was right behind, Paramount’s What Men Want with $3.2M and a week’s total of $25.2M. We hear production cost before P&A here was $31M, which is the responsible norm for New Line comedies.

Universal/Blumhouse’s Happy Death Day 2U earned an estimated $2.7M, +180% from its opening Wednesday for a two-day of $3.7M. The thought was that the weekend battle would be between this horror pic and Alita. That’s not happening at this point. The one upside is that the movie cost $9M before P&A.

Warner’s The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part ranked fifth on Valentine’s Day with $2.2M, for a $40.9M first week.

STX/Lantern’s The Upside made $1.33M, +156%, for a running five week total of $88.6M.

Lionsgate’s Liam Neeson snow plow action pic Cold Pursuit drew $1.3M for a $15.1M first week.

Alita 20th Century Fox

4TH UPDATE, THURSDAY MIDDAY: Fox’s Alita: Battle Angel is leading Valentine’s Day with an estimated $8.5M per midday figures, which breaks down into a Friday-Sunday that’s $23M-$25M, a FSSM that’s $28M-$30M, and full 5-day Presidents Day weekend launch of around $37M.

The pic cost $170M, that’s before P&A, and the Robert Rodriguez-directed pic will need plenty of help from overseas. It’s already out in South Korea, UK, Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Singapore and Philippines, and will hit all other overseas territories, i.e. France, Russia, Germany, Spain, Mexico, and Brazil with the exception of China and Japan. Remember in China, a US pic only gets a 25%-27% rental, so if the movie ultimately $100M, only $25M-$27M of that is coming back to Fox’s bank account.

New Line’s Isn’t It Romantic is eyeing $5M today for a $13M FSS, $14M-$16M FSSM, and a 6-day of $22M.

Universal/Blumhouse’s Happy Death Death 2U is seeing $2M today, a FSS of $5.2M, FSSM of $6.1M, and six-day that’s between $8M-$10M.

3RD UPDATE, WEDNESDAY AM: Despite two pics officially opening yesterday, Fox’s Alita: Battle Angel has bragging rights even though it was in previews: The Robert Rodriguez-directed, Lightstorm produced movie made more than any other title on the chart with $2.4M off showtimes that started at 7PM. The pic opens in 3,790 locations with the full suite of Imax, Dolby, PLF, RealD and 3D.

That number above includes Tuesday fan event money. 3D repped 66% of last night’s business. Early PostTrak for the film was three-and-half-stars with general audiences repping 88%, kids 7% and parents 5%. In the first night of Alita, males over 25 were the biggest quad at 43% and they loved the sci-fi femme action pic the most at 86%. Dwayne Johnson’s Rampage earned $2.4M in Thursday night previews before opening to $35.7M. Alita reportedly cost around $170M and the pic has a big hill to climb if there’s a reality of it breaking even. We’ll see if the Cameron fans buck the blemish of its 60% fresh RT score. Alita has already collected more than $32M overseas.

New Line’s Rebel Wilson comedy Isn’t It Romantic came in close to what we were seeing last night with Warner Bros. reporting $1.8M.

In early PostTrak –keep in mind these exits are premature– the pic received three-and-a-half stars with women at 70% enjoying the movie the most at 83%. Females over 25 made up close to half the crowd, followed by males over 25 at 22%, followed by females under 25 at 21%. By far, the best exits of the night. The comedy directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson is 66% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, which is an improvement on Wilson’s other romantic comedy, How to Be Single which earned 47% Rotten.

Warner Bros. also savored second place yesterday with Lego Movie 2 taking in $1.075M, taking its six-day total to $39.2M. Industry estimates expect the sequel’s second weekend to be in the $20M-$22M range.

Universal

Universal/Blumhouse’s Happy Death Day 2U, ranked third with $992K. That’s close to the $1M that the first pic earned from its 7PM Thursday night back in October 2017. Two and a half stars on PostTrak for the sequel. Males under 25 were the biggest quad last night at 37%, followed by females under 25 at 23% and then males over 25 at 22%. The first 2016 movie landed a 71% RT score, and this one is 64% fresh.

Nothing to be alarmed about for Romantic and HDD2U: Business will recover today on date night, Valentine’s Day, and into the weekend. Neither title held previews on Tuesday night and this is all a tee-off for the six-day Presidents Day stretch. Both Warners and Uni are counting today as ‘previews’ for both films. Uni specifically bowed HDD2U today out of respect for the one-year anniversary of the Parkland Shooting (which is today, Thursday).

Happy Death Day 2U is booked at 3,149 locations, while Romantic is at 3,444. On Fandango we hear Romantic is the top ticket seller heading into the weekend; Alita is No. 2. Comps are hard here since counter-programming typically doesn’t bow on a Wednesday in February. On the bright side, Romantic did slightly more business than the Valentine’s Day preview of Fox’s This Means War, which grossed $1.6M back in 2012. That pic starred Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine and Tom Hardy.

Tuesday’s preview provides the lowdown of how these pics will settle.