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It’s always to the advantage of the new opening to own first place at the boxoffice, so if Paramount thought FOOTLOOSE could pull it out over REAL STEEL, they would have staked their claim today. (Both pictures are reporting a 39% Saturday-to-Sunday drop.)
The Hollywood Reporter says Real Steel also made $23M overseas, which is slightly up from last weekend but includes an expansion into unspecified new territories. Look for Mitch Metcalf’s international boxoffice report later.
The rest of the US weekend boxoffice news was bad for the new openings (downright awful for THE BIG YEAR), and good for holdovers.
It’s easy to overreact to a lousy weekend like this. On the one hand, bear in mind that last year’s Jackass 3D was a huge overperformer, and that inflated the year-by-year comparison for this weekend. On the other, anyone who thinks the overall small declines for this weekend’s continuing films suggests anything other than desperate moviegoers unable to make themselves see the new arrivals and thereby forced to choose older ones is deluded. (The trend may well continue next weekend for everyone who isn’t a PARANORMAL ACTIVITY fan, since it’s not clear what audience exists for THREE MUSKETEERS 3D and Universal seems to be sneaking JOHNNY ENGLISH REBORN into town.)
The limited release of THE SKIN I LIVE IN was highly successful, with a $38.5K average in 6 theatres. Emilio Estevez’s THE WAY expanded to 100 theatres and did an OK $2500 in each, TAKE SHELTER held nicely after an expansion to 24 houses, with around $5500 in each. Considering its years on the shelf, FIREFLIES IN THE GARDEN did a decent $6K in each of 5, but TEXAS KILLING FIELDS could only manage $3K in each of 3.
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