Now if the Madagascar animals had to battle the Prometheus aliens, that might have been interesting.
OPENINGS: PROMETHEUS (20th) edged out MADAGASCAR 3 (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount) for Friday honors ($21.4M to $20.5M), but girls, you’re both pretty. Madagascar should pull ahead for the weekend thanks to family matinees (and what could be mixed word of mouth for Prometheus), and its opening day was more than 20% higher than Madagascar 2‘s. Madagascar has the family audience to itself for one more week, then Pixar’s Brave will likely push it into the shadows. Prometheus, too, doesn’t face any direct competition until June 22, when Fox’s own Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunger arrives.
HOLDOVERS: Word of mouth caught up with SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN (Universal), hit with a 63% drop from last week’s opening day. (The arrival of Prometheus didn’t help.) If those kind of declines continue, Snow White may not make it to the enchanted forest of $150M in the US. MEN IN BLACK 3 (Sony) should fall under 50% for the weekend, on track for $165M in the US–but still needing overseas to bail it out. THE AVENGERS (Disney), holding well despite all the new competition, is on the road to $600M domestic, which will leave it in a measly 3rd place on the all-time boxoffice list. THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL (Fox Searchlight) continues to find an eager older audience, down under 30% and topping $30M by the end of this weekend. And thinking of movies that just won’t stop, THE HUNGER GAMES (Lionsgate), despite having lost another 30% of its theatres, is still selling tickets and by Sunday will become only the 14th movie in US history to pull in over $400M.
LIMITED RELEASE: MOONRISE KINGDOM (Focus/Universal), widening its run to 96 theatres, is finding its per-theatre average fall to earth, but it’s still doing beautifully with what should be a $17.5K average for the weekend. BERNIE (Millenium) added a few theatres to 330, and held about even with around a $2500 per-theatre average. Leading the new arrivals is SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED (FilmDistrict), with a likely $10K per-theatre average for the weekend that looks better when you consider that it’s not following the conventional NY/LA release pattern and started out in Seattle and Portland as well. LOLA VERSUS (Fox Searchlight), which is in the basic 4-theatre NY/LA release, looks less hopeful with a likely $7500 average. PEACE, LOVE & MISUNDERSTANDING (IFC) is heading for a blah $3500 average in 30 theatres, despite hyping its opening with Jane Fonda Q&As.
NEXT WEEKEND: ROCK OF AGES (Warners) is one of the bigger question marks of the season, and it rocks and rolls its way into theatres on Friday. For those who feel pleasure at the words “Adam Sandler in,” THAT’S MY BOY (Sony) is unleashed as well. On the indie front, the excellent YOUR SISTER’S SISTER (IFC) arrives from the festival circuit.
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