Looks like The Muppets just don’t have the box-office power we thought they might as The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is looking at a third weekend in the #1 slot in a row after an estimated $5.5 million on Friday which should result in a $17 million three-day weekend, which will bring its domestic cume close to $250 million.
Breaking Dawn already passed the $500 million mark worldwide and with this weekend’s result will become the first of the four films in the franchise to actually hold on to the #1 spot three weekends in a row. As a matter of fact, The Twilight Saga: New Moon was the only other film in the franchise to win two weekends in a row and remains the highest grossing film in the franchise in terms of worldwide totals with $709 million and it looks like it will remain the franchise’s top earner, but will Breaking Dawn – Part 2 topple it next November?
In second are The Muppets with $2.7 million, a film Laremy predicted would hit $16.75 million for the weekend, but it’s looking more like $10 million at this point or maybe a tiny bit more considering it is a family film headed into Saturday and Sunday.
Budgeted at $45 million (though I have to assume the marketing budget on this one was astronomical), this will put The Muppets around the $56 million range domestically after this weekend, but wow, should this hit $11 million we’re still talking about a 62% drop from last weekend. Granted, it did open on a Wednesday so a larger drop would be expected, but I’m not sure many expected this large of a drop.
In third we have one of the success stories of the year so far, at least compared to expectation as the massive $150 million budget for Hugo is going to make it hard for it to be a financial success at the box-office, but with another $2 million on Friday and a weekend that could end around $10 million, the film is still doing quite well in only 1,840 theaters. We’re looking at a $5,434 per theater return should it hit $10 million for the three-day. Question is, can it expand and improve on these numbers or has it already hit its peak? After all, it’s only looking at a domestic cume of $27.5 million or so after this weekend, though I anticipate it doing well overseas where it just opened in the UK and Turkey this weekend.
Elsewhere, The Descendants expanded to 574 theaters this weekend and pulled in $1.4 million and should hit around $4.5 million for the weekend.
Opening in only ten theaters in five cities, Steve McQueen’s NC-17-rated Shame brought in an impressive $110,476. The Weinstein’s The Artist expanded to San Francisco for a total of six theaters and brought in $55,574 on Friday and fellow Weinstein release, My Week with Marilyn, brought in $345,000 from 244 theaters.
I have included the top ten below courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter and will be back on Sunday with a complete weekend wrap-up.
- The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 – $5.5 million
- The Muppets – $2.7 million
- Hugo – $2 million
- Arthur Christmas – $1.6 million
- Jack and Jill – $1.5 million
- The Descendants – $1.4 million
- Happy Feet Two – $1.4 million
- Immortals – $1.3 million
- Tower Heist – $1.2 million
- J. Edgar – $710,000
