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.
After three weeks of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney Pictures) running rampant over the box office, a new movie entered IMAX, 3D and 2D theaters to claim the top spot. Opening in over 4,000 theaters, DreamWorks Animation’s latest How to Train Your Dragon, featuring the voices of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler and America Ferrera, grossed an estimated $43.3 million, averaging roughly $10,678 per venue. That amount is down from their last animated movie Monsters vs. Aliens, which opened the same weekend last year with $59.3 million, but wasn’t fighting for 3D and IMAX screenings with other movies like “Dragon” was. It’s not the best opening for a DreamWorks animated movie, the last three which have opened over $59 million, but it’s a good start for a movie that’s received some of the company’s best reviews and exit buzz. Internationally, “Dragon” earned $31 million for a foreign total of $42 million so far.
Dropping to second place and down 49% after losing many IMAX and 3D screens, Alice in Wonderland added another $17.3 million to its impressive gross of $293 million in just four weeks, which should make it the first movie to cross the $300 million mark this year, as well as only the second movie to reach that amount before Easter after Mel Gibson’s The Passion of The Christ. Internationally, “Alice” topped the box office for a fourth straight weekend with $46 million to bring its overseas total to $363 million. The film’s worldwide gross has now reached $656.1 million.
The R-rated retro-comedy Hot Tub Time Machine (MGM), starring John Cusack, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry and Clark Duke, opened moderately in third place with $13.6 million in 2,754 theaters.
The Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston comedy The Bounty Hunter (Sony) dropped to fourth place with $12.4 million and $38.8 million total after ten days, down 40% from its opening week. The family movie based on Jeff Kinney’s bestseller Diary of a Wimpy Kid (20th Century Fox) took a steeper 55% plunge down to fifth place with $10 million and less than $36 million in the same period.
The rest of the Top 9 consisted of returning movies making between $3 and 3.5 million with the DreamWorks comedy She’s Out of My League, also starring Jay Baruchel, leading the way with a total gross of $25.6 million. It was followed by Paul Greengrass’ Green Zone (Universal), Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island (Paramount) and the sci-fi thriller Repo Men. Shutter Island had the smallest drop in the Top 10 from last week, and it’s grossed $120 million so far, making it Scorsese’s second-biggest hit after the Oscar-winning The Departed.
Opening in limited release was Atom Egoyan’s erotic thriller Chloe (Sony Pictures Classics) starring Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried and Liam Neeson, which brought in just over a million dollars in 350 theaters, averaging roughly $2,800 per site.
Click here for the full box office results of the top 12 films.
