Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart in David Slade’s The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (top); Selena Gomez, Joey King in Elizabeth Allen’s Ramona and Beezus (bottom)
INCEPTION Tops; SALT in Second Place: Box Office
Down one spot, Despicable Me, featuring the voices of Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Julie Andrews, and others, took in an excellent $24.1m (-26.5%) at no. 3, according to studio estimates found at Box Office Mojo. Despicable Me’s total to date: $161.7m. Cost: $69m.
The no. 4 movie was Jon Turteltaub’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, starring Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel, with $9.68m, down a perfectly acceptable 45%.
Even so, unless the foreign market comes enthusiastically to the rescue The Sorcerer’s Apprentice will be a costly flop for the Jerry Bruckheimer/Disney alliance. Total to date: $42.6m. Cost: $150m.
Lee Unkrich’s Toy Story 3, featuring the voices of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, and Joan Cusack, was no. 5 with $9.03m. Total to date: $379.5m. Cost: $200m.
Expect Toy Story 3 to cross the $400m mark within the next week or so.
At no. 6, new entry Ramona and Beezus, starring Selena Gomez, scored only $8m at 2,719 venues ($2,942 average). According to CinemaScore, it earned an A- from moviegoers, which means its drop-off rate next weekend may not be too drastic.
Yet, the Fox release will have some trouble covering its modest $15m production cost (not including marketing/distribution expenses) domestically, as it’d need to gross around $30m.
Next in line was Adam Sandler’s resilient Grown Ups, which brought in $7.6m at no. 7. The critic-proof comedy has remained quite popular, especially on weekends. It was down only -23.3% despite the loss of 215 locations. Total to date: $142.4m. Cost: $80m.
Down four spots after losing 880 theaters, the Robert Pattinson-Kristen Stewart-Taylor Lautner romantic fantasy The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, brought in $7.03m in eighth place. Total to date: $279.6m. Cost: $68m.
Among this year’s major blockbusters in North America, Eclipse and The Karate Kid boast the best cost-to-revenue ratio. In the case of Eclipse, that’s 4.1.
Rounding out the top twelve this weekend were Noah Ringer’s The Last Airbender with $4.17m (total to date: $123.2m; cost: $150m), Adrien Brody’s Predators with $2.85m (total to date: $46.5m; cost: $40m), Mark Ruffalo’s The Kids Are All Right with $2.64m (total to date: $4.9m; cost: $4m), James Mangold’s Knight and Day with $1.7m (total to date: $72.6m; cost: $117m).
Among the top twelve movies, The Kids Are All Right had once again the highest per-theater average, $13,174, followed by Inception with $11,473 and Salt with $10,105. Knight and Day had the lowest, $1,344.
After going from 38 to 201 theaters, The Kids Are All Right posted the biggest attendance increase, +148.8%. It was followed by Grown Ups with an impressively low -23.3% despite having lost more than 200 locations.
Predators, after losing 823 sites, posted the highest drop-off rate, -59.4%.
Photos: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Kimberley French / Summit Entertainment); Ramona and Beezus (Alan Markfield / 20th Century Fox)