What? We're still here?
Here’s how it looks:
1. Dark Knight Rises (Legendary/Warner Bros) Week 3 [4,242 Runs] PG13
Friday $10.2M, Saturday $14.8M, Weekend $36.2M, Cume $354.4M
2. Total Recall (Sony) NEW [3,601 Runs] PG13
Friday $9.2M, Saturday $9.8M, Weekend $26.5M
3. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid 3 (Fox) NEW [3,391 Runs] PG
Friday $5.8M, Saturday $5.1M, Weekend $14.5M
4. Ice Age 4 (Fox) Week 4 [3,542 Runs] PG
Friday $2.4M, Saturday $3.3M, Weekend $8.0M, Cume $131.5M
5. The Watch (Fox) Week 2 [3,168 Runs] R
Friday $1.9M, Saturday $2.5M, Weekend $6.3M (-50%), Cume $25.3M
“The Dark Knight Rises” vs. “Total Recall” was like USA Olympic basketball vs. Nigeria the other day, just no contest. Deadline (who supplied the above numbers) complains that it’s stupid of Hollywood to keep thinking Colin Farrell can carry a movie, but I honestly don’t think he was expected to be the draw. I think Sony thought the name of the movie would sell it to the crowd who may have been familiar with the original, and those who weren’t might be sold on the sci-fi action premise. I bet “Total Recall” will be one of those movies who does nothing here and plays well internationally.
“Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days,” the latest in the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” franchise, departed from their usual formula by opening in August instead of March, with less than stellar results. However, they had the book in the series titled “Dog Days” so they thought it made sense to open in the summer. It got an A- CinemaScore, so maybe word of mouth will help over the next few weeks.
Overall box office was down compared to last year. Why? America looooooves the Olympics; everyone’s glued to their TVs instead of out at the multiplex. Sure, we all know the results well before NBC’s primetime show, but there’s still something fun about sitting down and watching it all at the end of the day. So it appears only Dark Knight fans and people who hate swimming are going to the movies for these few weeks in August.
Next week: the big curiosity is “The Bourne Legacy,” with comedies “The Campaign” and “Hope Springs.” Does TDKR have one more week in it? We’ll see…
