It was a great weekend for animated films after Pixar’s latest, Brave, had the 5th best opening ever for the studio while Madagascar 3 finished 2nd. Meanwhile Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter could not break out of its niche, so only 3rd.
When it comes to box office success Pixar films are unmatched in Hollywood, so Brave was no different. Opening with $66.3 million, the animated flick is well on its way to becoming the 10th Pixar film to ever gross more than $200 million in North America. Out of all of their recent films, only the critically panned Cars 2 could not reach that mark after also opening with $63 million last year. I think Brave will show better box office legs, thus finishing its run higher than Cars 2 (191.4 million). The next big animation, Ice Age: Continental Drift, comes out in 3 weeks so until then Brave has families all for itself.
In 2nd we have former leader Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted with another $19.7 million, down a surprisingly low 42.1% considering the competition it faced over the weekend. With $157 million after 17 days, Madagascar 3 is way ahead of both Madagascar 2 ($137.1 million) and Madagascar ($128.4 million) and should easily become the biggest hit of the franchise with over $200 million.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter opened in 3rd place with $16.3 million. That’s only the 15th biggest opening for a film featuring blood-suckers (vampires). Now if this was ranked on the basis of it being a historic political-drama about the struggles of a president having to lead a double life, then Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter would probably be much higher simply because I doubt there’s anything like it out there. That being said, originality won’t pay back that $69 million budget and neither will this film’s North American gross. So Fox will have to look overseas to save this film
Prometheus continued dropping at an alarming rate in 4th, down 52.2% with $9.9 million. The Ridley Scott sci-fi horror is at $108.4 million right now. Forget xenomorphs, space jockeys is where it’s at.
Snow White and the Huntsman was down only 39% for $8 million and $137.1 million so far. That’s already more than double Mirror Mirror‘s total of $64.2 million. Leaving that to the side I still can’t believe Universal green lit a sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman.
