Animated films are having a pretty stellar summer. This weekend, Toy Story 3 just became the highest grossing Pixar film of all time (surpassing Finding Nemo.) Illumination Entertainment just released their first film, Despicable Me, and cleaned up at the box office. Despicable made over $60 Million during its opening weekend, earning the distinction of being the highest opening weekend for an animated film not made by Pixar or Dreamworks. Just like that, we have some serious competition for the animation studios. Not too bad for a movie with no built in audience.
Illumination spent about $69 Million for the animation in Despicable Me, which is well beneath the average for a Dreamworks or Pixar film. The film enjoyed a healthy “A” cinemascore rating by exiting audience members, which typically indicates long legs and good word of mouth. Despite the fact that the movie played in 3D, it was limited in its amount of theaters, because Toy Story and The Last Airbender are both still playing in quite a few 3D venues. There is no doubt that Despicable take would have been higher had it been able to capitalize on more 3D screens.
Twilight: Eclipse was bumped down to the number two spot this week. It had about a 48% drop from opening weekend, typical of the franchise that is historically heavily front-loaded. It still managed to make about $33 Million, hardly a number to scoff at. This brings the 12 day total to $237 Million, which is pretty astounding, and topped the total for New Moon in the same time period ($235 Million.)
Predators scared up a decent $25 Million over the weekend. With a modest budget of $40 Million, this bodes well for the film. Toy Story 3 nabbed the fourth spot with $22 Million. Its four week total is $340 Million.
The Last Airbender dropped an ominous 57% over last weekend, which is pretty telling of what audiences thought of the film. Still, the movie managed to surpass the $100 Million mark. However, with a budget of $150M and marketing budget upwards of $100 Million it will not likely be profitable.
By adding another $16 Million, Grown Ups also made it past the $100 Million milestone.
In indie news, Cyrus held steady at number ten, despite only showing on about 200 screens. The movie has now made about half of its $7M budget, and it has yet to be opened in wide release. However, the biggest story of the week is The Kids Are All Right. The indie film opened on all of seven screens, and made a mind blowing $72,000 per screen. That is astonishing, and shows some amazing interest in the film. I can’t wait to see what happens when it expands into more theaters.
Sources: Box Office Mojo, Los Angeles Times
What has been your favorite Summer movie so far?
