Monday, April 03, 2006

Weekend Movie Box Office

Ice Age 2 capitalized on solid reviews to score a monster $70.5 million over the weekend. It came close to all sorts of records -- second biggest nonholiday weekend ever (behind The Passion of the Christ) and second biggest animated opener ever (behind The Incredibles). And yet the biggest applause came before the movie even started: Fox included a teaser trailer for The Simpsons, which they now promise for July 2007. But it was Sharon Stone's tepid $3.2 million opening for Basic Instinct 2 that really caught the eye. She knew this was all about the paycheck, but surely didn't expect an opening that miserable. Slither also flopped, scoring $3.7 million. But with the friendly reviews it got, this movie is certain to do gangbusters on DVD. It'll have to if it wants to break even. Thank You For Smoking continues to light up in limited release -- hitting $1.7 million from just 127 screens. And Brick -- one of the cleverest movies aroound -- was exceptional. It opened on two screens -- the Angelika in NYC and one in LA -- and did $43,750 per screen. Focus Features -- the people behind Brokeback, Lost in Translation, Pride and Prejudice and many others -- can do no wrong.

1. Ice Age 2 -- $70.5 million
2. Inside Man -- $15.7 ($52.8 million)
3. ATL -- $12.5 million
4. Failure To Launch -- $6.6 ($73.2 million)
5. V For Vendetta -- $6.5 ($56.8 million)
6. Stay Alive -- $4.6 ($17.3 million)
7. She's The Man -- $4.6 ($26.8 million)
8. Slither -- $3.7 million
9. The Shaggy Dog -- $3.5 ($53.8 million)
10. Basic Instinct/Larry The Cable Guy (tie) -- $3.2 million

1 comment:

Reel Fanatic said...

Those "Slither" numbers are pathetic, but having seen this fun oddity, I expect word of mouth to spread well before DVD and think we will see a spike in the next two weeks .. but then again, I've been wrong many, many times in my life