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Posted October 3, 2011 by Seth Paul in News
 
 

Weekend Box-Office: Dolphin Tale Surfaces

With its theatrical run coming to a close, The Lion King 3D finally fell out of the top spot, earning third place with an estimated $11.1 million and an impressive $79 million in three weeks. However, it was a down week overall, meaning the new winner, Dolphin Tale, still dropped in revenue, getting into first with only an estimated $14.2 million. Still, it was enough for the family drama to break even on its budget, which can’t be said of 2nd place finisher Moneyball. The highly praised baseball drama cost $50 million to make and has made only $38 million in two weeks, but even the drop from last week’s revenue to an estimated $12.5 million isn’t all that shabby.

The middle finishers are all newcomers, and while they couldn’t put up bigger numbers against admittedly stiff competition, they all placed well against each other. 50/50, the drama/comedy starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen made an estimated $8.9 million, beating out the religious drama Courageous with an estimated $8.8 million, which in turn beat out the very poorly received ghost thriller Dream House, which made an estimated $8.2 million. None of these films have data available on their budgets, so whether they did fairly well or flopped is still up in the air.

The Taylor Lautner vehicle Abduction still can’t click, dropping to an estimated $5.7 million this weekend, but it did slightly better than the Anna Faris vehicle What’s Your Number?, which opened with an estimated $5.6 million. Contagion finally broke even domestically, earning an estimated $5 million for $64 million in four weeks ($71 million in worldwide gross), while Killer Elite is sinking quickly, its estimated $4.9 million leaving it with only a paltry $17 million in two weeks, considering its $70 million price tag and big name star power.

Weekend Box-Office (September 30 – October 1)

  1. Dolphin Tale…$14.2 million
  2. Moneyball…$12.5 million
  3. The Lion King 3D…$11.1 million
  4. 50/50…$8.9 million
  5. Courageous…$8.8 million
  6. Dream House…$8.2 million
  7. Abduction…$5.7 million
  8. What’s Your Number?…$5.6 million
  9. Contagion…$5 million
  10. Killer Elite…$4.9 million
Seth Paul

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."