Articles

August 5, 2012
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY EARLY WEEKEND BOXOFFICE – 8/4/12

 

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (Warners) had a solid Saturday and no trouble at all beating the new competition in its 3d weekend of release.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Rises should have a $36.2M weekend, a 42% decline from last weekend that’s slightly better than the 43% Weekend 3 drop for The Dark Knight (but well below the earlier film’s $42.7M 3d weekend total).  Rises, which is now running about $40M below Dark Knight after 17 days in release, is the 3rd fastest film ever to reach $350M, behind only The Avengers and of course Dark Knight.

TOTAL RECALL (Sony) is currently claiming a small Saturday bump and a $26.5M weekend, putting it $1M above the 1990 original’s opening.  We may not know until Monday if those figures are accurate, but in any case, they’re lousy for a big-budget extravaganza. (By way of comparison, the estimate is also just $1M above the disastrous opening of Battleship, and $3.7M below John Carter‘s start.)

Saturday was even worse for DIARY OF A WIMPY KID:  DOG DAYS (20th), which fell about 12% from Friday to Saturday, a terrible sign for a family movie.  The picture is likely to have a $14-15M weekend, significantly down from the $22.1M/$23.8M openings of the other pictures in the franchise.  That probably means a $35-40M total gross, and even though Wimpy Kid is an inexpensive series, that may not be enough to keep it going.

The rest of the holdovers were mostly consistent with their Friday results or a bit better.  THE WATCH (20th) should be down 50%, STEP UP REVOLUTION (Summit) 55%, TED (Universal) 25%, BRAVE (Pixar/Disney), MAGIC MIKE (Warners) and THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (Sony) 35% each, and ICE AGE 4 (20th) 40%.



About the Author

Mitch Salem
MITCH SALEM has worked on the business side of the entertainment industry for 20 years, as a senior business affairs executive and attorney for such companies as NBC, ABC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, and BermanBraun Productions, and before that, at the NY law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. During all that, he has more or less constantly been going to the movies and watching TV, and writing about both since the 1980s. His film reviews also currently appear on screened.com and the-burg.com. In addition, he is co-writer of an episode of the television series "Felicity."