Weekend Wrap-Up: Ice Age off to a Cold Start
July 16, 2012
Ice Age: Continental Drift opened on the low end of expectations. The rest of the top five did better than predicted, but that wasn't enough to compensate and the overall box office fell 16% from last weekend to $165 million. This was 37% lower than the same weekend last year, and less than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II opened with. 2012 is still ahead of 2011, even if the margin is down to 6.6% at $6.05 billion to $5.68 million. The box office should bounce back next weekend with the release of The Dark Knight Rises.
Perhaps four films was one too many for the Ice Age franchise. Ice Age: Continental Drift opened in first place with $46.63 million over the weekend, but this was at the very low end of expectations and barely more than the first film opened with, despite a decade of inflation to help boost ticket sales. Additionally, its Tomatometer Score continued to sink and now it sits at just 39% positive. That will likely hurt its legs, even though it is a family film. On the other hand, there are no other family films till Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days comes out at the beginning of August and the next animated film is ParaNorman, so this film will have the family market to itself for a while. Also, the film has already made a ton internationally and will continue to do so for several weeks. As long as these films make this much internationally, their domestic totals won't matter.
The Amazing Spider-Man was a little stronger on Thursday and held up better over the weekend allowing it to reach the $200 million milestone on Sunday. Its weekend haul was down just 44% to $34.63 million while its running tally rose to $200.50 million. It became the fifth film to reach that milestone and should find itself in third place for the year so far. (It won't last there very long.) Combined with its international numbers, the film is close to being profitable already.
Ted added $22.41 million over the weekend for a three-week total of $159.26 million. It too is on pace to reach $200 million, although it might fall out of the top five before it gets there. Not bad for a film that cost about $50 million to make.
Brave will also get to $200 million and should do so by this time next week. This past weekend it made $11.16 million for a total of $196.06 million after four. It has one more weekend in the top five ahead of it, while it has barely started its international run. It will have no trouble earning a profit for Pixar.
Savages just topped Magic Mike at $9.39 million to $9.02 million. Savages fell just 41% during its sophomore stint, which is a strong showing. However, it only has $32.13 million after ten days of release, which means it will end its run just north of $50 million, making it a midlevel hit, no more. On the other hand, by this time next week, Magic Mike should be above $100 million domestically. That's amazing for a film that cost just $7 million to make.
The only other sophomore film to not reach the top five was Katy Perry: Part of Me. It fell 47% to just $3.80 million over the weekend for a total of $18.65 million after two. It might reach $25 million in total, if its theater count doesn't collapse this weekend. It won't make a profit domestically, because its P&A was probably close to that figure, but it could reach profitability sometime during its home market run.
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Brave, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises, Ted, Ice Age: Continental Drift, Savages, Magic Mike, Katy Perry: Part of Me