WEEKLY BOX OFFICE ACTUALS & YEAR TO DATE: July 30-August 5

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Another relatively slow week at the North American box office.  Dark Knight Rises keeps chugging along (still lagging behind the domestic pace of 2008’s Dark Knight but still on track for close to $450 million), but two new films opened weakly and no other holdovers are doing much business.

The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume

All films in wide release playing between July 30 and August 5 grossed a pretty soft $186 million, down 13% from the four-year average for the comparable week and down 25% from the same week in 2011 (when Rise of the Planet of the Apes opened to a robust $54.8 million in its first weekend). Year to date (now almost $6.5 billion for wide-release films) is now running 6% ahead of past years at this point (down from +8% through last week).

Weekend Actuals versus Studio Estimate

The major films this weekend (the top three with weekends greater than $10 million) came in with actual weekend grosses within 2% of the studio estimates.  The official third weekend number for The Dark Knight Rises ended up at $35,737,330 officially, down 1.9% from the studio estimate Sunday morning.    

Total Recall opened with $25,577,758, down 1.6% from the Sony estimate Sunday morning, while Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days opened with $14,623,599 officially, down a scant 0.5% from Fox’s estimate.  

Updated Estimates of Final Grosses

The ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Grosses (the estimated North American gross when the film ends its run) are summarized below for films released the last six weeks. Pay attention to the final domestic grosses, which are much more important than individual weekend grosses and especially weekend rankings.