'Rise Of Planet Of Apes' Leaping To $40M, But 'The Change-Up' Sinking To $14M

FRIDAY8 PM, 2NDUPDATE: After a low-key midnight opening of $1.254 million in only 1,124 North American locations, Fox's prequel Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is jumping to an easy box office lead in 3,648 theaters. Hollywood initially thoughtthe origins story withCGI animals and James Franco would follow the same trajectory as last weekend'sCowboys & Aliens which had about $800K in midnights and went on to a $36.4MFriday-Saturday-Sunday.But, remember, that pic got Smurf-ed at the box office. ThisApes is faring better than Cowboys, looking around $15M Friday for a projected $40M weekend even without the hype and pedigree but at half the budget ($93M, or so Fox claims). The other major studio release, Universal's The Change-Up, is bottoming. This truly isn't Ryan Reynolds' summer of stardom after the collapse of Green Lantern here and abroad. He and Jason Bateman star in this raunchy R-rated comedy that isunderperforming for only a $4.5M Friday and expected $14M weekend in 2,913 venues. It's a disastrous start considering that stars like Reynolds are supposed to open movies to at least $20M. "It's disappointing. We're kind of confounded by it," a Uni exec tells me. "This movie tested unbelievably well and played like the best R-rated comedies we have." But reviews have hammered this movie with the lame body-switch premise. Full analysis and refined numbers coming later today.