CinemaNerdz

Weekend Box-Office: Breaking Dawn Leaves Competition Drained

Seth Paul

Is it surprising to anyone anymore that a Twilight film debuts in the #1 spot? Well, it’s happened once again, as The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 not only took the top spot, it savaged the competition, making an estimated $139.5 million, which was almost as much as the gross of the entire Top 10 last week. Happy Feet Two also debuted, but the animated 3D film fell to a very distant (but compared to its competition, fairly respectable) second place with an estimated $22 million. Neither film was quite as well-received by critics as by their audiences, but with a triple-digit opener, Breaking Dawn – Part 1 shows the series remains practically critic-proof.

The positions of the remaining films in the list remain almost exactly the same, save for the shift caused by the two top earners. Of the best of the rest, Immortals kept ahead with an estimated $12.3 million and Jack and Jill sat just below with an estimated $12 million. Puss in Boots was the last of the double digit earners with an estimated $10.7 million, and is the only film in this week’s top five that has received mostly positive reviews. However, in four weeks it has yet to break even domestically, and has had a surprisingly lackluster foreign performance, bringing in only $53.1 million in overseas box office.

Tower Heist leads the bottom of the pack, with an estimated $7 million, and unlike Puss in Boots has had its foreign box office help push it into the realm of profitability. J. Edgar, on the other hand, has had no overseas openings as of yet, and its estimated $5.9 million isn’t doing much to help its sluggish performance, even with a budget of only $35 million. It could take a page from A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, which has had surprisingly decent reviews and shown fairly well on a $19 million budget, despite only taking in an estimated $2.9 million in its third weekend. In Time fell just behind it at an estimated $1.7 million, and while it is performing below expectations here, has earned nearly twice as much overseas as it has in the U.S. ($33.4 to $61.6 million).

But the real surprise is the tenth-place earner, The Descendants. While its estimated $1.2 million seems like a shallow debut, George Clooney and Alexander Payne seem prepared to go the Black Swan route to success, with its earnings coming from a limited release of only 29 theaters. With rave reviews and a larger release likely to come, be ready to see it climb the list in the next few weeks.

Weekend Box-Office (November 18 – November 20)

  1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1…$139.5 million
  2. Happy Feet Two…$22 million
  3. Immortals…$12.3 million
  4. Jack and Jill…$12 million
  5. Puss in Boots…$10.7 million
  6. Tower Heist…$7 million
  7. J. Edgar…$5.9 million
  8. A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas…$2.9 million
  9. In Time…$1.7 million
  10. The Descendants…$1.2 million

Seth Paul

When not failing to write novels and screenplays, box-office guru Seth writes humorous comedy tracks for films under the name "The One Man Band" that can be found at Rifftrax.com. Although, he has recently succeeded in writing the novella "Jack Alan and the Case of the Not-Exactly Rocket Scientists," available as an eBook on Amazon. He is also the English voice of Zak in "Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space."
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