Pixar’s thirteenth film opened number one for the weekend ended Sunday, June 24. There was really no doubt about this one as there was limited competition, so the question became more so about how much Brave would gross and whether or not the animated studio would have any blowback for choosing a female lead.
Apparently, that did not happen as Brave debuted to $67 million in its first three days of release. This occurred while Madagascar 3 was seeing some strong retention, so it probably is not worth saying that it could have done better if the DWA movie had performed worse. Anything in that regard is up to speculation, but the takeaway here is that Pixar has not lost their touch even in the face of following up Cars 2 which is widely perceived to be their worst effort yet.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer also hit theaters this weekend. Vampires continue to be a poorly performing horror subgenre in the industry as the Tim Burton-produced film opened to a meager $16.5 million. The film cost under $100 million, so nobody should be saying this was a disaster, but it certainly was far from a ‘bankable’ outing.
This weekend also saw the surprise flop of a more which already had extremely low expectations. Steve Carell’s Seeking a Friend for the End of the World flopped even though it only saw half the distribution of other major releases. $3.8 million is pretty awful for a movie from Carell who is proving to be not above his material in its allure.
Here are the top ten from the first day of the weekend of June 22-24, 2012.
Title – ($WEEKEND/$TOTAL)
1. Brave – $66.7 M / $66.7 M
2. Madagascar 3 – $20.2 M / $157.6 M
3. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter – $16.5 M / $16.5 M
4. Prometheus – $10.0 M / $108.5 M
5. Snow White and the Huntsman – $8.0 M / $137.1 M
6. Rock of Ages – $8.0 M / $28.8 M
7. That’s My Boy – $7.9 M / $28.2 M
8. The Avengers – $7.0 M / $598.2 M
9. Men in Black 3 – $5.6 M / $163.3 M
10. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World – $3.8 M / $3.8 M