The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend. Click here for the full box office estimates of the top 12 films and then check back on Monday for the final figures based on actual box office.
Thanksgiving weekend saw a huge influx of business to movie theaters, and while it was a tight race between Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (Warner Bros.), which set a new record for the franchise in its opening weekend last week and Disney’s new animated film Tangled, the former came out ahead with $50.3 over the three-day weekend to Tangled‘s $49 million. Tangled opened with $11.8 million on Wednesday, roughly three million below “Potter,” and after dropping on Thanksgiving Thursday to roughly $8 million, it rebounded in a big way on Black Friday to take in $19.7 million, minimizing the gap between the two movies compared to Potter’s $20.7 million. Disney estimates that Tangled grossed $69 million in its first five days and despite taking second place for the weekend, it is officially the second-highest opening movie for the Thanksgiving slot, falling just behind Toy Story 2‘s $80 million five-day wide opening (after an exclusive platform run) in 1999 and ahead of Disney’s more recent Thanksgiving winner, Enchanted, with $49 million in its first five days in 2007.
With the $76 million it made since the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the seventh “Harry Potter” movie has grossed roughly $220 million in its first ten days. Internationally, “Deathly Hallows” added $113.2 million for an overseas total of $389.2 million. Worldwide, the film has earned an impressive $609.6 million already. Deathly Hallows also reached $31.2 million in global IMAX grosses in ten days, the fastest for one of the “Harry Potter” movies to reach that amount, grossing $5.8 million in domestic IMAX theaters over the 3-day weekend.
DreamWorks Animation’s Megamind took third place for the weekend with $12.8 million over the three-day weekend, down 20% from last week, and grossing $130.5 million total since opening three weeks ago.
The Screen Gems musical Burlesque, starring Christina Aguilera and Cher, settled for fourth place with $11.8 million for the weekend in over 3,000 theaters and $17.2 million since opening on Wednesday.
The Denzel Washington-Chris Pine action-thriller Unstoppable (20th Century Fox) has proven to be just that, holding well against the new movies and bringing in an impressive $11.7 million in its third weekend, down just 10% from last week–the best hold for any returning movie in the Top 10–with the possibility of being bumped up to fourth place when actual numbers come in. It has grossed $60.6 million since opening three weeks ago.
The other two new movies, the dramedy Love and Other Drugs (20th Century Fox) starring Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal, and Dwayne Johnson’s action thriller Faster (CBS Films) settled for sixth and seventh place, respectively, with an estimated $9.8 million and $8.7 million over their three-day weekend. Love and Other Drugs grossed $14 million since opening on Wednesday with Faster making $12.2 million.
Todd Phillips’ R-rated road comedy Due Date (Warner Bros.) dropped to eighth place with $7.3 million and $85 million total for the month.
Paul Haggis’ crime-thriller The Next Three Days (Lionsgate), starring Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks, took ninth place with $4.8 million and $15.5 million total, while the Top 10 was rounded out with the Paramount comedy Morning Glory, starring Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton, with $4 million and $26.5 million total.
The Top 10 grossed $170.6 million over the three days following Thanksgiving, which is just slightly down from last year when The Twilight Saga: New Moon, The Blind Side and Roland Emmerich’s 2012 remained in the Top 3 for a second weekend in a row.
Opening in limited release on Friday in just four theaters in New York and Los Angeles, the acclaimed British drama The King’s Speech (The Weinstein Company), starring Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush, grossed $349 thousand with a per-theater average of over $87 thousand per site.
Click here for the full box office results of the top 12 films.