Saturday, July 03, 2010

Star-Spangled Derby

As rockets go off and family canines cower under beds, we find two animated features rolling along in the Top Domestic Ten. As the Nikkster reports:

3. Starting its third week is Disney's Toy Story 3 with $10.5 Friday from 4,028 plays. That's probably a 3D-aided $48M for the 4-day holiday weekend to pass $300M. The pic's cume after 18 days should reach a whopping $306M.

9. Shrek Forever After 3D (DWA/Par) Week 7 [957 Theaters] Friday $1.4M, Est 4-Day Holiday $4M, Est Cume $235 ...

The latest teeny bop vampire movie will be dominating this weekend. But two animated features raking in millions isn't bad. (Shrek currently has a multiple of its opening weekend of around 3.3. Toy Story's opening clearly took a chunk out of S4's domestic gross.)

Add On: The New York Times tells us the winners of the Gala Holiday Box Office:

“The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” drew an estimated $161 million out of North American theaters in its first five days of release, a spectacular if not quite record-breaking result. ... “The Last Airbender,” which opened Thursday on Paramount’s Nickelodeon Movies banner, was a solid No. 2 for the weekend with about $40.7 million for a domestic total of about $53.2 million. ... “Toy Story 3” ... was third with about $30.2 million for a new total of $289 million

“Grown Ups” (Sony Pictures Entertainment) was fourth with about $18.5 million for a new domestic total of $77.1 million. ... “Knight and Day,” ... was fifth with about $10.2 million ...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That, and the Live-Action Cartoon Directed By the Creepy-Gloomy Guy opened big for #2, but has gotten a disastrous overnight panning from the critics and audience. (For pretty much the obvious reason.)

It doesn't matter what's out of the top 5, but like most years, Pixar ends up being the Last Movie Standing in a weak blockbuster summer.

Anonymous said...

but like most years, Pixar ends up being the Last Movie Standing

I'm sure in the world of Pixar fanboys, that stat seems to be true. It must be, right? The public loves Pixar, and is sick of DreamWorks.

In reality, over the last 9 years (2009-2001) Pixar and DreamWorks have gone head to head with CG features eight times. In those 8 contests, the DreamWorks' film was tops four times, the Pixar film was tops three times, and one year it was pretty much a toss up (2008, where Wall-E finished an eyelash ahead of Kung Fu Panda, and Madagascar 2 also finished at number 8 overall).

This year, TS3 will be the top animated film, but DreamWorks has two flat-out blockbusters in Shrek4 and HtTYD.

If it makes you feel better to believe that the public really prefers Pixar all the time, every time, keep believing. The fact is, both studios have been enormously popular with the public, and it's no accident that the top 16 CG-animated films are all DreamWorks or Pixar films.

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