Two of the weekend’s openings drew upon their core audiences for strong Saturday results. Weekend matinees are prime time for family movies, and according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, THE LEGO MOVIE (Warners) had a huge $31.4M second day in theaters, almost doubling its Friday result and making a $70M weekend likely. That will make it the 2d biggest February opening in history, behind only The Passion of the Christ‘s $83.8M. It’s also more than the entire $60M cost of producing Lego.
Meanwhile, the older audience for THE MONUMENTS MEN (Sony/20th) doesn’t necessarily rush out to see its movies on opening night, and that gave Men a very handsome 43% bump to around $10M on Saturday and a $23M weekend, a solid result for a relatively serious historical drama that didn’t get much critical support.
VAMPIRE ACADEMY (Weinstein), on the other hand, was built around a young female audience that’s traditionally very front-loaded, and Vampire barely budged from its Friday number on Saturday, up $100K to $1.5M. It may not even reach $4M for the weekend, and the only thing keeping it in multiplexes next week will be contractual obligations.
Holdovers were in line with their Friday results, with RIDE ALONG (Universal) in the lead with a $9-10M weekend, FROZEN (Disney) next at around $7M, and LONE SURVIVOR (Universal) and THAT AWKWARD MOMENT (Focus/Universal) both at about $5.5M (a much better result for Survivor, now over $110M, than for Moment, struggling to reach $20M). LABOR DAY (Paramount), in its 2d wide weekend, lags behind with $3-3.5M.
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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."
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