Everyone enjoys a quiet weekend before the Bat-attack begins at 12:01AM Thursday night.
OPENINGS: The important number for ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT (20th) isn’t the $46M US opening (the lowest of the franchise), but the $95.2M earned overseas, giving it a total of $339.2M internationally since the movie started opening in foreign territories more than 3 weeks ago. It’s still in only 64 markets, meaning it’ll certainly surpass Ice Age 2‘s $460M international total before it’s done, and could even reach the huge $690M for Ice Age 3. Scrat’s going to be chasing that acorn for a long time to come.
HOLDOVERS: With no serious new competition, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (Sony) had a strong hold, dropping only 44%. It also made an additional $66.6M in 87 international territories, for an overseas total of $320.4M. It may not quite get to the $800M worldwide that Sony is apparently counting on, but should hit $700M+, more than enough to keep the franchise rolling (and more profitable than the studio’s MEN IN BLACK 3, which cost more and will end up with a worldwide total around $600M). The range of US weekend declines for most titles in the market was 42-47%, but TED (Universal) outperformed the pack with a terrific 31% fall in its 3d weekend. The only outlier was MADAGSCAR 3 (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount), which lost screens and kids to Ice Age and fell 54%.
LIMITED RELEASES: MOONRISE KINGDOM (Focus/Universal) and TO ROME WITH LOVE (Sony Classics) held on to the art-house crowd with drops of only 18-19%. Moonrise, with a head start and higher per-theatre gross, is ahead with a $32.7M total that should get above $40M as the summer goes on, while Rome, with $8.7M to date, kept the bulk of its boxoffice while losing 10% of its theatres. Rome, while no Midnight In Paris-like phenomenon, should be Woody Allen’s 4th or 5th biggest success of his past dozen movies. BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (Fox Searchlight) expanded to 81 theatres with a solid $9500 per-theatre average. SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED (FilmDistrict) tried expanding to 173 theatres, but had only an $1800 average. Sarah Polley’s lovely TAKE THIS WALTZ (IFC), with Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen, barely dropped at all in 47 theatres, with a decent $3200 average. Most impressive of the new arrivals was FAREWELL MY QUEEN (Cohen Media), with an $18K average in 4 theatres. EASY MONEY (Weinstein) was somewhat behind with a $12K average at 2. TRISHNA (IFC), despite mixed reviews, had a $10K average at 3. The acclaimed documentary THE IMPOSTER (IM) made $20.6K at 1 NY theatre.
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