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.
Easter weekend saw the release of two new movies in wide release, but neither could dethrone director Gary Ross’ The Hunger Games (Lionsgate), which brought in $13 million on Good Friday and an estimated $33.5 million over the three-day holiday weekend, bringing its total domestic gross to $302.8 million by Sunday night. It becomes the third movie to gross $300 million after opening in the normally slow winter-spring movie season before January and April, following Mel Gibson’s The Passion of The Christ and Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Internationally, the adaptation earned $25.5 million this weekend to push its overseas total to $157.1 million. The film has grossed $460 million worldwide so far.
The fourth installment of the R-rated “American Pie” comedy franchise American Reunion, reunited all of the original cast including Jason Biggs, Eugene Levy, Seann William Scott, Jennifer Coolidge and many more, but like Wes Craven’s Scream 4 last year, its attempt at nostalgia failed to deliver an opening on par with any of the original movies. After grossing $9.2 million on Friday, its business settled down over the weekend to take second place with $21.5 million in 3,191 theaters. It added another $19.3 million internationally from the 28 territories in which it opened, and when you realize the production costs for the movie were only $50 million, that $40.8 million worldwide in just three days is not bad at all.
Opening on Wednesday, the rerelease of James Cameron’s blockbuster hit Titanic in 3D took in $8.4 million before the weekend, grossed another $7.1 million on Good Friday and took third place with $17.3 million for the weekend with $25.7 million in its first five days. It grossed $2 million of that amount from the 79 IMAX theaters in which it was playing.
The epic sequel Wrath of the Titans (Warner Bros.), starring Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Rosamund Pike and Bill Nighy, dropped to fourth place with $15 million, down 55% from its opening weekend, with $58.9 million grossed in ten days. Internationally, the sequel added another $43 million in first place for a foreign total of $152.8 million.
Tarsem Singh’s family comedy take on the “Snow White” story with Mirror Mirror (Relativity Media) took fifth place with $11 million, down just 39% from last weekend with $36.5 million total.
It was followed in sixth place by the R-rated comedy 21 Jump Street (Sony), starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, which became the fifth movie of 2012 to cross the $100 million mark with $10.2 million over the weekend and $109 million total. (Look for Journey 2 to join them sometime in the next week or two.)
Universal Pictures’ animated hit Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax dropped to seventh place with $5 million as it approached the $200 million mark, but fell just short with a total gross of $198 million. Not bad considering its relatively inexpensive $70 million production costs.
The British indie comedy Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (CBS Films), starring Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt, expanded into 424 theaters and dropped down to eighth place with just under a million dollars over the weekend and $4.6 million total.
Disney’s John Carter lost over a thousand theaters and dropped to ninth place with $820 thousand and just under $68 million total in North America. Two months after its opening, Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds’ thriller Safe House returned to the Top 10 for the first time in weeks with $580 thousand in just 482 theaters as it approaches $125 million total gross domestically.
The top 10 grossed just under $116 million up 18% from last year’s non-Easter weekend where four new movies opened but failed to dethrone Universal’s Easter comedy Hop, which remained in first place with $21.3 million.
Meanwhile, the critically-acclaimed Indonesian action flick The Raid: Redemption (Sony Pictures Classics) moved into the Top 12 this weekend as it expanded into 176 locations and grossed an estimated $564 thousand for eleventh place.
Whit Stilman’s comedy Damsels in Distress, his first movie in nearly fourteen years, this one starring Greta Gerwig and Analeigh Tipton, opened with $64 thousand in four theaters in New York and L.A., averaging $16 thousand per location.
Click here for the full box office results of the top 12 films.
