Vampires, Werewolves and Airbenders arrived at the North American box office this holiday weekend to help sales rise 20% over last year this time as The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and the new 3D family adventure The Last Airbender both arrived to big numbers.
Debuting in a record 4,468 theaters, the latest chapter in the popular supernatural teen saga nabbed a massive $161 million since its debut at 12:01am on June 30th. In addition to the $92 million from its first two days on the market, the Friday-to-Sunday timeframe for Eclipse generated an estimated $69 million in sales. The daily breakdown for Eclipse was $68.5 million on Wednesday (a record $30 mil at midnight and $38.5 during the day), $24.5 million on Thursday, a slight uptick to $28.5 million on Friday, $24 million on Saturday and $16.6 million on Sunday. Summit Entertainment is estimating a post-holiday uptick on Monday to $20 million which would bring its first six days to an eye-popping $181 million. Overseas, the film sunk its fangs into $100 million in its first weekend which would bring its worldwide totals over a quarter billion dollars.
While the five-day gross of $161 million is astounding no matter how you decipher it, it does also show that the profitable series may be showing some signs of fatigue. For starters, the weekend gross of $69 million is only a slight bit better than the opening day take. As shown above, each successive date showed a fair-sized drop from the previous day (due to the 4th of July holiday, Sunday was expected to be off across the board for all movies).
The Twilight films have always been front-loaded in terms of their business. Witness the last chapter, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, grossing more than half its gross in its first four days. But given the screen count, which included higher-priced IMAX screens, as well as the fact that it opened during a big summer holiday weekend, the erosion displayed by Eclipse may indicate that a fair amount of the book’s fans may have had enough of the cinematic exploits of Bella and company with New Moon. Depending on the drops from here on out, Eclipse should be able to pass the overall gross of New Moon, which would put the $68 million production in the elite $300 million club. How much further beyond that is anyone’s guess. Reviews, which really don’t matter when it comes to such a beloved franchise like Twilight, were somewhat stronger than the ones that greeted New Moon last November.
Offering an alternative to moody heroines, sparkly vampires and shirtless werewolves, Paramount launched M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender on 3,169 screens on Thursday en route to an estimated $58 million weekend (Thursday landed $16.6 million while the weekend finished with $40.65 million). Despite unanimous pans from critics and some savage online feedback from viewers, the film succeeded in enticing fans of the Nickelodeon anime series the film was based on, Avatar: the Last Airbender, as well as young males looking for their latest visual effects/action fix. The debut was Shyamalan’s biggest since 2004’s The Village and nearly double the $30 million opening of his last film, 2008’s The Happening.
Dropping down to third place with a 49% ease in business from last weekend, Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 3 added an estimated $30 million to its domestic total, which now stands at a huge $289 million after 17 days. The film will pass Pixar’s last effort, 2009’s UP, either tomorrow or Tuesday to become the studio’s biggest hit since 2003’s Finding Nemo (before inflation). Despite direct competition for 3D and family dollars from The Last Airbender and next week’s Despicable Me, the Pixar smash should continue to hold its own over the upcoming summer weeks which should help Woody and Buzz’s final feature-length trip to cinemas (?) finish between $375-385 million.
In fourth place was the Adam Sandler comedy Grown Ups which dropped a sizeable 54% to $18.5 million from 3,534 screens for a new ten-day estimated gross of $77 million. The movie’s performance at the box office is in line with Sandler’s other slapstick comedies and should finish with a gross slightly north of $110 million, a solid gross to be sure but not quite as big as Sony may have hoped for given the film’s $80 million price tag.
Fox’s action comedy Knight and Day landed in fifth place with $10.2 million for a new total of $45.5 million. Off 49% from last weekend’s underwhelming $20.2 opening, the film is looking at a disappointing $60-65 million domestic take. Fox will have to hope for big returns from overseas markets to see profits from the Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz flick. Maybe they should have converted the film to 3D before it was released. Perhaps not.
Kicking up an additional $8 million in estimated sales this weekend to nab sixth place was Sony’s reboot of The Karate Kid. Down 48% from last weekend, the surprise hit remake has grossed an impressive $151.5 million to date. The $170 million range is still a possibility. In seventh place was Fox’s The A-Team with $3 million in sales for the holiday. Off by half from last weekend, Hannibal and the boys have hauled in $69 million to date and should wind down its theatrical run between $75-80 million.
Two films nearing the end of their run occupied slots eight and nine this weekend. Universal’s comedy Get Him to the Greek gave up 1,304 screens and fell a steep 62% to $1.1 million for a new total of $57.2 million. Paramount/Dreamworks’ Shrek Forever After surrendered nearly 1,400 of its screens and dropped nearly 75% for a weekend haul of $800,000 to bring its overall total to the $232 million to date. Aldus Snow should make it to the Greek with $60 million in grosses while Shrek and Donkey will head off into the sunset with approximately $235 million.
Arriving in the top ten this weekend is Fox Searchlight’s comedy Cyrus with a big $770,000 from only 77 screens to bring its total to $1.5 million so far. The John C. Reilly/Jonah Hill R-rated film arrives riding a wave of raves from critics and will continue to expand across the country over the next few weeks.
Next week the latest installment in the Predator franchise, the Robert Rodriguez-produced Predators arrives to take on Team Edward and Team Jacob. The teen dream teams will also find themselves fending off the computer-animated likes of Steve Carell and Russell Brand in Universal’s new 3D animated comedy Despicable Me. Stop by tomorrow (Tuesday) and try to guess next weekend’s box office totals for these films with a chance at Blu-ray prizes in our weekly Weekend Box Office Prophet Game.
– Shawn Fitzgerald
