By Todd Allen
The Expendables 2 managed to win the weekly box office with a debut just south of $29M, in a bit of ho-hum weekly box office. Nothing big broke and the largest story might be the drastic manner in which theater managers kicked The Watch to the curb.
First, here are the estimate for the top 10, per Box Office Mojo.
1 The Expendables 2 $28,750,0002 The Bourne Legacy $17,020,0003 ParaNorman $14,008,0004 The Campaign $13,385,0005 Sparkle (2012) $12,000,0006 The Dark Knight Rises $11,140,0007 The Odd Life of Timothy Green $10,909,0008 Hope Springs $9,100,0009 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days $3,850,00010 Total Recall (2012) $3,500,000
Perhaps The Bourne Legacy dropped a little more heavily than you’d like to see with 55.4%, but nothing spectacular. ParaNorman had a so-so opening, considering it was on 3,429 screens. It only averaged $4,085/screen. The Odd Life of Timothy Green opened mid-week and is a little over $15M for it’s opening wee.
The bigger story is the nearly 2000 screen count drop for The Watch. The Watch was a movie it seemed like nobody wanted to see it’s had (and continues to have) sad per screen averages. So sad that it’s screen count went down 1,950, leaving 513 intact. At least for this week. That’s a pretty drastic drop, but it sure wasn’t packing them in.
In the geek-centric box office, Dark Knight dropped off about 41%. We’re in the phase where we see if it has similar staying power to Avengers and can hang out between #6-#10 for awhile. It’s on the verge of cracking the all-time worldwide top 20. I don’t think it’s going to quite crack $1B global, but it’s moved into the #2 domestic spot and will probably hang on it, since Twilight is opening in November and won’t have its full box office in 2012.
Amazing Spider-Man is on the way out. It’s down to 598 screens an only managed $770K this weekend. Spidey’s sitting on $257M domestic and I don’t think he’ll see $275M. Globally, he’s fairing better with $692M and counting. It’s going to end up somewhere around $700M global. Not bad, but that $230M budget makes with a milder success than you’d otherwise think.
Avengers, the BIG winner of the year is still soldiering on. $157K on 142 screens — a better per screen draw than The Watch, but most films are. Avengers finally debuted in Japan. I’m hearing ~$18M. It won’t pass Titanic for #2 all-time, but it’s got a pretty tight grip on #3.
If you think this week was sleepy, next weekend could be sleepier. Nothing’s scheduled to open with 3000+ screens. Hit & Run opens on 2,700 screens with Bradley Cooper and Kristen Bell. Premium Rush is scheduled for 2,100 screens and has Dark Knight Rises’ Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a bike messenger pursued by bent cops.
“Nothing big broke and the largest story might be the drastic manner in which theater managers kicked The Watch to the curb.”
You mean theater owners. Most theater managers have no say in what movies they show.
And theater owners only are reflexive in nature as they react to what the audience wants. Pure capitalism at its very best (or worst).