The Hollywood studios must be sighing in relief today – especially Sony, which scored both the top two box office spots over the weekend. After several consecutive poor weeks (one of which was a record-setting low with the worst-ever opening for a movie), the box office has finally bounced back.
Seven weeks since the last significant kids’ movie opened, the family-friendly ‘Hotel Transylvania‘ killed it this weekend, earning the best opening since July’s ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ and the best ever opening for a film in September. If you add the $43 million domestic gross with totals from the 13-market overseas release, ‘Transylvania’ closed the weekend with a total of $51.1 million.
The R-rated sci-fi action flick ‘Looper‘ scored an impressive $21.2 million. Since it’s a Chinese co-production, China gave the film a huge push in that market. The international totals for ‘Looper’ aren’t in yet, but it looks to close out the weekend in China around $23 to $25 million.
On just 335 screens, ‘Pitch Perfect‘ finished in the #6 spot with $5.2 million. The $17 million comedy earned the highest per-screen average: $15,552. This weekend proved to be a great head-start for the film’s 2,000-plus screen expansion, which is set for next weekend.
The release that didn’t score so big was ‘Won’t Back Down,’ the educational drama starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis. Its $2.7 million opening only warranted tenth place with a pathetic $1,074 per-screen average.
Sadly, weekend estimates have not yet been announced for a single of the indie titles mentioned in my Weekend Movies post.
Top 10:
1. ‘Hotel Transylvania’ (Sony) – $43,000,000
2. ‘Looper’ (TriStar) – $21,200,000
3. ‘End of Watch’ (Original Film) – $8,000,000
4. ‘Trouble with the Curve’ (Warner Bros.) – $7,530,000
5. ‘House at the End of the Streeet’ (Relativity) – $7,154,000
6. ‘Pitch Perfect’ (Universal) – $5,200,000
7. ‘Finding Nemo 3D’ (Buena Vista) – $4,066,000
8. ‘Resident Evil: Retribution’ (Screen Gems) – $3,000,000
9. ‘The Master’ (Weinstein) – $2,745,000
10. ‘Won’t Back Down’ (Fox) – $2,700,000
Ben
Many sites seemed to report an incorrect China gross for Looper (so it sort of spread like wildfire from there), the 23-25 million is in Yuan, not USD, so Looper’s China gross is closer to 4 million dollars.
23-25 million would be a bigger opening than The Avengers, Dark Knight Rises, or Amazing Spider-Man in China. I mean, I know they like their co-productions, but I don’t think quite that much 🙂
William Henley
What’s the price for a ticket in China? I know a lot of China is rural, but with a population of over 1 billion people, $23 million sounds like a realistic expextation. Of course, I am not sure how many of those people actually live in a city with access to a Cinema.
Ben
Not sure on the price, but I don’t think it’s hugely removed from US prices relatively. However, theater availability is an issue. I believe Looper was in about 1500 screens over the weekend, half the amount of the US, and cinema-going is still a growing market in China.
Box office totals in China last year was close to 2 billion or so (including local films), that’s 1/5th the US market.
William Henley
I guess that makes sense. So if China box office totals last year were 1/5th of the US market, $4 million is 1/5th of what it made domestically, so that sounds like a reasonable number.