As anticipated Snow White and the Huntsman claimed the top spot at the North American box office in the first weekend of June. Men in Black 3 showed good staying power in 2nd while The Avengers reached another landmark.
I have to say, $56.2 million for Snow White and the Huntsman is a bit more thAn I and many others were expecting, so good news for Universal after the box office disappointment that was Battleship. Comparing Snow White films, Mirror Mirror opened with $18.1 in late May this year, that means Snow White and the Huntsman was more than three times bigger this weekend with its $56.2 million. Even more impressive, the film beat the opening of Men in Black 3, without the help of higher priced 3D tickets. But somewhere around all this good news there’s also one bad news, the high $170 million budget spent on making it. That will certainly take quite an effort from the film in the coming weeks to recoup. Right now I think Snow White and the Huntsman might end up with $170-180 million in North America, so it could have a surprisingly good run.
In 2nd place Men in Black 3 got $28 million, down only 48.6%, impressive since films opening on Memorial weekend tend to fall a lot harder the following week (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal was down 55.3% while last year’s The Hangover Part 2 was off 63.5%). Men in Black 2 was at $115.6 million after 10 days, Men in Black 3 has $111 million, so an ok run so far for this long dormant franchise.
The Avengers keeps on pushing the big numbers, $20.4 million last weekend for an insane total of $555 million. As expected, on Friday The Avengers passed The Dark Knight Rises ($533.3 million), becoming the new highest grossing superhero flick of all time. It’s also now the fastest to $550 million and should hit $600 million sometime this month, although probably not fast enough to beat Avatar‘s gross speed record (47 days to $601.1 million). The Avengers is still on track to finish around $620-630 million.
Battleship was 4th with $5 million for a total of $55.9 million after 18 days (John Carter had $62.8 million) while The Dictator rounds out the top 5 thanks to $4.7 million and $51.3 million so far.
