{"id":35823,"date":"2012-06-11T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2012-06-11T15:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/?p=35823"},"modified":"2012-06-10T16:19:46","modified_gmt":"2012-06-10T23:19:46","slug":"boxoffice-jun-11-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/boxoffice-jun-11-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Box Office: Animals Over Aliens"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend’s box office defied expectations. Neither of the two new openers ended where predictions placed them. Even so, the weekend was up 30% from last summer.
\n<\/p>\n

I never believed (despite the studio predictions) that the R-rated sci-fi\/horror thriller ‘Prometheus<\/strong>‘ would finish in the #1 spot \u2013 and it didn’t. The dull 3D kid’s movie ‘Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted<\/strong>‘ nabbed first place instead with $60.3 million. That’s less than $3 million behind 2008’s ‘Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa’. As the first kids’ movie since ‘The Lorax’, the threequel was certain to win big. <\/p>\n

Ridley Scott’s return to the ‘Alien<\/a>‘ universe didn’t earn the $55.5 million that Fox expected it to, but its $50 million second-place finish was quite strong for an R-rated science fiction film. The only problem I see plaguing the ‘Alien’ prequel is the divided and polarized audience reaction. While some view this opening as a failure, it’s still the biggest opening of the ‘Alien’ franchise and the 12th all-time highest opening for an R-rated movie. Follow-ups are certain.<\/p>\n

Last week’s top movie, ‘Snow White and the Huntsman<\/strong>‘, dropped a staggering 59%. ‘Men in Black 3<\/strong>‘ also fell 52%. Rounding out the Top 5 in its sixth weekend was ‘The Avengers<\/strong>‘. At this rate, by the end of next weekend, ‘The Avengers’ should pass $600 million domestically.<\/p>\n

Hippie family dramedy ‘Peace, Love and Misunderstanding<\/strong>‘ featured a decent opening with $102,000 on 30 screens. ‘Safety Not Guaranteed<\/strong>‘ did exceptionally well with a $100,000 opening on just nine screens. That $11,111 per-screen average should boost FilmDistrict’s confidence as the movie gets a platform release over the next few weeks. ‘Lola Versus<\/strong>‘ also opened quite strong with $34,100 on just four screens.<\/p>\n

Top 10:<\/h5>\n

1. ‘Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted’ (Paramount\/DreamWorks) – $60,350,000<\/p>\n

2. ‘Prometheus’ (Fox) – $50,000,000<\/p>\n

3. ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ (Universal) – $23,021,000<\/p>\n

4. ‘Men in Black 3’ (Sony) – $13,500,000<\/p>\n

5. ‘The Avengers’ (Buena Vista) – $10,809,000<\/p>\n

6. ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ (Fox Searchlight) – $3,235,000<\/p>\n

7. ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ (Lionsgate) – $2,710,000<\/p>\n

8. ‘Battleship’ (Universal) – $2,286,000<\/p>\n

9. ‘The Dictator’ (Paramount) – $2,150,000<\/p>\n

10. ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ (Focus) – $1,579,000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend’s box office defied expectations. Neither of the two new openers ended where predictions placed them. Even so, the weekend was up 30% from last summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":36246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139,743],"tags":[626,178,4423,3307,3360,4596,4168],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35823"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35823"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36248,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35823\/revisions\/36248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}