This weekend has been heavily looked at from the studio perspective for a number of reasons, especially because some films were pushed back after the strong tracking of The Vow for Valentine’s Day, which in essence knocked This Means War completely off track. And it comes again as we see that the 3D re-release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace does fairly weak business overall compared to what fans may expect it to do even if it’s a film that they hate. At this point, Safe House ha taken the lead by a few pennies and the release of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is doing pretty good as the three films are all pretty close in their take so far.
For anime fans, the opening weekend release of The Secret World of Arrietty has come across quite well by pulling in nearly $6.5 million. The previous Ghibli release to hit theaters here was Ponyo and that wasn’t marketed nearly as strongly and came out during the dead August time period where films don’t do well. It brought in $3.5 million during its opening weekend of August 14th in comparison to what we have so far. And with this being a holiday weekend, studios will bump up their opening weekend takes to include Monday as well. Ponyo went on to take $15 million in the US theatrically.
In 2005, Disney release Howl’s Moving Castle to theaters and its opening weekend take was just $427,000 during its June 10th opening. It went on to gross $4.7 million overall. Tales from the Earthsea did not get a wide release and only brought in $48,000 domestically during a very limited run in 5 theaters. The 2002 release of Spirited Away which garnered much of the attention a decade ago had an opening weekend of $450,000 and took in just over $10 million during its theatrical run in the US. By all barometers, The Borrowers has done very well, even ranked as it is for the week, and shows the marketing that Disney did behind it worked rather well overall.
Domestic Film Box Office (Estimates) Weekend of Feb 17-19
| Rank | Film Name | Distributor Name | Weekend Revenue | Cume Revenue | Locs | Loc Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Safe House | Universal | 23,969,280 | 78,238,895 | 3,121 | 7,680 |
| 2 | Vow, The | Sony | 23,600,000 | 85,526,837 | 2,958 | 7,978 |
| 3 | Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance | Sony | 22,000,000 | 22,000,000 | 3,174 | 6,931 |
| 4 | Journey 2: The Mysterious Island | Warner Bros. | 20,085,000 | 53,201,342 | 3,500 | 5,738 |
| 5 | This Means War | 20th Century Fox | 17,550,000 | 19,159,805 | 3,189 | 5,503 |
| 6 | Star Wars: Episode I – Phantom Menace | 20th Century Fox | 7,865,000 | 33,738,235 | 2,655 | 2,962 |
| 7 | Chronicle | 20th Century Fox | 7,500,000 | 50,979,426 | 2,556 | 2,934 |
| 8 | Woman In Black, The | CBS Films | 6,645,000 | 45,255,618 | 2,559 | 2,596 |
| 9 | Secret World Of Arrietty, The | Disney | 6,375,000 | 6,375,000 | 1,522 | 4,188 |
| 10 | Grey, The | Open Road | 3,031,454 | 47,924,513 | 2,107 | 1,438 |
| 11 | Descendants, The | Fox Searchlight | 2,925,000 | 75,007,770 | 1,243 | 2,353 |
| 12 | Artist, The | The Weinstein Company | 2,325,000 | 27,423,959 | 808 | 2,877 |
© Rentrak Corporation 2012 – Content in Rentrak Theatrical box office updates is produced and/or compiled by Rentrak Corporation and its Box Office Essentials® theatrical box office data collection and analytical service, and is covered by provisions of the Copyright
