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earned an estimated $1.6 million from late Thursday shows. That's roughly on par with, which earned $1.5 million from early shows. This isn't a perfect apples-to-apples comparison, though:started at midnight, whilebegan much earlier in the evening.A better comparison is, which earned $1.5 million from Thursday evening shows back in September. Iffollowed the same trajectory as, it would wind up with around $35 million this weekend.This weekend, moviegoers will have one last chance to see Liam Neeson use his "very particular set of skills" in the third and final installment in thefranchise.While it will almost certainly open well below its predecessor,is still going to easily take first place at the box office this weekend ahead of the holiday holdovers. Meanwhile, civil rights dramaexpands to over 2,000 theaters after a successful two-week run in limited release.Playing at 3,593 locations,arrives in theaters a little over two years after the second installment, and nearly six years after the first. The originalopened to $24.7 million over Super Bowl weekend in 2009, and then held up remarkably well thanks to strong word-of-mouth. It wrapped up its run with $145 million—nearly unprecedented for a January release—and subsequently did strong business on home video.The success ofestablished Neeson as an action star, which is a role he's subsequently played with great success inand. Neeson also returned to the Bryan Mills character in, which opened twice as high as its predecessor ($49.5 million) and closed at nearly the same level ($139.9 million).While the final domestic box office for the first twomovies was essentially identical, there were two key differences between the movies. On the positive side,earned nearly three times as much at the international box office ($236 million vs. $82 million). Unfortunately, the consensus was that the second installment was significantly worse than the first: the Rotten Tomatoes rating dropped from 58 percent to 21 percent, while the IMDb rating dropped from 7.9 to 6.2.In an effort to prevent a big drop off in box office,is being positioned as the final entry in the franchise: the widely-used tagline "It Ends Here" spells that out pretty clearly. This is the third time such an approach has been used in the past month followingand fellow 20th Century Fox release. It worked well for—which will wind up earning slightly more than its predecessor—but couldn't save(which was probably going to take a big dip regardless).Aside from the finale angle,'s marketing has essentially delivered what fans have come to expect from the franchise: plenty of action, along with bit of Neeson acting tough on the phone. Unfortunately, it loses two key elements of the previous movies. First, it doesn't seem like anyone is getting "taken" this time; this calls to mind, which didn't involve a hangover of any kind (and wound up earning less than half as much as its predecessors).also ditches the exotic settings of the last two movies (Paris and Istanbul) in favor of Los Angeles. As a result of these changes,looks more like a generic man-on-the-run thriller than the finale to a career-defining action franchise.20th Century Fox is hoping for at least $30 million this weekend, which would putabove last year's($28.9 million) and in the same general ballpark as($34.1 million). Anything below $35 million would put the movie on track to earn less than $100 million total.While U.S. moviegoers may be tiring of thefranchise, it's likely that international demand is still quite high. The last movie earned over $230 million; based on a few strong early openings, $200-million-plus seems like a lock forBox Office Mojo