Spidey is in the books… so we’re officially on the clock for The Dark Knight Rises.
OPENINGS: In addition to its $140M 6-day US opening, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (Sony) is reporting $129M for the weekend from 74 international territories (it had already earned $72M from territories where it opened last week, for an overseas total of $201M). As with its US boxoffice, that’s excellent but not record-breaking–in fact, Ice Age: Continental Drift already has $198M in the bank from only 48 territories. Back in the US, Spidey ranked #27 among all-time 6-day openings, below any of the Sam Raimi Spider-Men series, and with Dark Knight just over the horizon, it’s likely to be the lowest-grossing of the franchise (despite 3D ticket prices). Nevertheless, Amazing did its rebooting job, allowing Sony to continue the series–an opening date for Spider-Man 2/5 (depending on how you count) has already been scheduled.
SAVAGES (Universal) is claiming a lower Sunday decline than Spider-Man‘s in order to get to its $16.2M weekend estimate, and we’ll find out tomorrow if that’s valid, particularly since, contrary to preliminary numbers, Savages went down instead of up on Saturday. In any case, the picture will be lucky to reach $50M in total US boxoffice. KATY PERRY – PART OF ME (Paramount) won’t be anywhere near that, with only $10.3M for its 4-day opening, and because of marketing costs, will be hard-pressed to hit breakeven despite a very low $12M production budget.
HOLDOVERS: TED (Universal) held beautifully with only a 40% drop in Weekend 2, even better than BRAVE‘s (Pixar/Disney) 41%. MADAGASCAR 3 (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount) had the weekend’s best hold among wide releases, though, with a 35% drop. The latter 2 will face major competition next weekend from Ice Age 4, and final projections will have to wait until we see how they face that foe. On the other side of the ledger, MAGIC MIKE (Warners) and MADEA’S WITNESS PROTECTION (Lionsgate) both fell 60% in their 2d weekends–but both are low budgeted and will be substantial hits, especially Mike, which could still reach $100M, thanks to its frontloaded opening. PEOPLE LIKE US (DreamWorks/Disney) fell 47%, on its way to a sad final boxoffice total of only around $15M.
The longer-running summer movies (THE AVENGERS (Disney), PROMETHEUS (20th), SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN (Universal), etc) are all losing theatres as they near the end of their runs, with drops of 50% or more from last weekend. In the case of the disastrous ROCK OF AGES (Warners) and THAT’S MY BOY (Sony), the plunges are more like 70%.
LIMITED RELEASES: MOONRISE KINGDOM (Focus/Universal) held extraordinarily well, with only a 6% drop at 884 theatres. That’s still at only a $5300 per-theatre number, though, and it’s not clear if it’s going to allow for much more expansion. TO ROME WITH LOVE (Sony Classics) expanded to 806 theatres with an OK $4300 per-theatre average, and while it’s clear the movie won’t be a Midnight In Paris-level hit, the next couple of weeks will tell whether it can be a significant success. BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (Fox Searchlight) widened to 19 theatres with a good $19.8K average. THE INTOUCHABLES (Weinstein) has quietly been doing nicely, down only 9% in its 7th week of release (a $4700 average in 60 theatres), and $3.1M in the bank so far. SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED (FilmDistrict) and YOUR SISTER’S SISTER (IFC) haven’t made much of an impact, with $2000-2500 averages.
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