OPENINGS: Both of the weekend’s big arrivals found their audiences. WRECK-IT RALPH (Disney) had to settle for $49.1M after Saturday’s 58% bump–not that huge for an animated title–but if those numbers hold, it’ll still be enough to set a record for (non-Pixar) Walt Disney Animation, beating the 48.8M for Tangled. FLIGHT (Paramount) had a very impressive 31% Saturday bump and hit $25M in only 1884 theatres. (The studio plans to expand the run starting Nov 16, which will help keep the weekend numbers looking stable as we get deeper into awards season.) Reports are that 90% of its audiences are over 25 years old, so the question will be whether the picture can ride word-of-mouth to attract younger viewers. Despite being the only opening to decline on Saturday, THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS (Universal) is claiming the smallest Sunday drop in the Top 10, resulting in a potentially dubious $8.2M weekend. That number isn’t great in the first place, and it may go down tomorrow when actual figures are released. The biggest boxoffice news of the weekend, though, was overseas, where SKYFALL (Sony) made a remarkable $157M, this weekend, giving it a huge $287M total after 10 days. It will almost certainly be over $300M by the time it opens in the US on Thursday (at 12:07AM, of course).
HOLDOVERS: The ARGO (Warners) phenomenon continues, as Ben Affleck’s smash fell only 15% in its 4th weekend, now on track to become Affleck’s biggest hit as a director and his first to go over $100M–and this despite the arrival of Flight, which is aimed at the same audience. No good news for last weekend’s openings, as CLOUD ATLAS (Warners), FUN SIZE (Paramount) and CHASING MAVERICKS (20th) all fell 45%, and SILENT HILL REVELATION (Open Road) dropped 59%. TAKEN 2 (20th), PITCH PERFECT (Universal) and HERE COMES THE BOOM (Sony) continue to please their customers, with respective drops of 22%, 23% and 31%.
LIMITED RELEASE: THE SESSIONS (Fox Searchlight) expanded to 69 theatres and managed only a $6600 per-theatre average, a number likely to drop as it moves into wider release. The best of the newcomers by far was A LATE QUARTET (EOne), with an OK $8400 average at 9. Meanwhile, THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER (Summit/Lionsgate) continues to be rock-solid, down only 15% at 622 theatres after 7 weeks as it aims at a $15M+ total.
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