The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend. Click here for the full box office estimates of the top 12 films and then check back on Monday for the final figures based on actual box office.
As bad as last weekend may have been at the box office, this weekend was even worse, because even with two new movies, the Top 10 dropped roughly 7% from last weekend.
Gary Marshall’s star-studded romantic comedy New Year’s Eve (New Line/WB), the follow-up to the hit Valentine’s Day starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Halle Berry, Josh Duhamel, Robert De Niro, Jessica Biel, Katherine Heigl, Zac Efron and more, was thought to be able to bring in women with its impressive cast, but it ended up opening with just $13.7 million in 3,505 theaters, averaging less than $4 thousand per site.
Jonah Hill starred in David Gordon Green’s R-rated comedy The Sitter (20th Century Fox), which didn’t do much better, opening with roughly $10 million in 2,750 theaters for second place.
Summit Entertainment’s The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 dropped to third place with $7.9 million, down 52% from last week, and brought its four-week total to $259.5 million.
Disney’s The Muppets took fourth place with $7.1 million and $65.8 million total, followed by Sony Pictures Animation and Aardman’s Arthur Christmas in fifth with $6.6 million and $33.5 million total.
The Martin Scorsese-directed Hugo (Paramount) added 768 theaters on Friday but dropped to sixth place with $6.1 million, down just 19% from last week. It is neck and neck with Arthur Christmas with $33.5 million after three weeks.
Alexander Payne’s The Descendants (Fox Searchlight) also added roughly 300 theaters and added $4.8 million to raise its total gross to $23.6 million.
It was followed by George Miller’s animated Happy Feet Two (Warner Bros.) with $3.7 million and Adam Sandler’s Jack and Jill (Sony) with $3.2 million for eighth and ninth place. Both have done disappointing business with Happy Feet Two having accumulated $56.8 million in four weeks and Sandler doing $68.6 million with one extra week.
Opening in just four theaters in New York and Los Angeles, the adaptation of John Le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Focus Features), starring Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy and Mark Strong, brought in $301 thousand, an impressive $75 thousand per site, while Jason Reitman’s fourth feature Young Adult (Paramount), starring Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt, did just slightly more ($320 thousand) in twice as many theaters. The latter opens nationwide on Friday, December 16.
Click here for the full box office results of the top 12 films.
