Update Sun. p.m.: Box office returns for the first weekend of the holiday season are coming in, with wide releases (more than 3000 screens) such as …
- The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 set for another first-place finish over the five-day American Thanksgiving holiday ‘weekend’, with a second weekend gross of $62.3 million
- the new family-friendly Muppets movie set to rake in $42 million
- the animated flicks Happy Feet Two and Arthur Christmas set for a box office take in the range of $18 million apiece for the weekend, and
- Martin Scorsese’s well-reviewed and entirely enchanting Hugo 3D (in only 1277 theatres) set for a quite spectacular $15.4 million début.
- the new family-friendly Muppets movie set to rake in $42 million
Now we just have to wait for the Friday opening of the critic friendly Oscar contender The Descendants, starring certain Oscar nominee George Clooney, and My Week With Marilyn, with rave reviews for Michelle Williams in the lead role, and the boffo box office holiday weekend will be complete.
Update: Sunday night box office numbers …
1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 — $42 million ($62.3 million over five days, in 4,066 theatres, for a cumulative worldwide total of $489,300,000)
2. The Muppets — $29.5 mil ($42 mil, in 3,440 theatres)
3. Happy Feet Two — $13.4 mil ($18.4 mil, in 3,376 theatres)
4. Arthur Christmas — $12.7 mil ($17 mil, in 3,606 theatres)
5. Hugo — $11.4 mil ($15.4 mil, in only 1,277 theatres)
6. Jack and Jill — $10.3 mil ($14.1 mil, in 3,029 theatres)
7. Immortals — $8.8 mil ($12.6 mil, in 2,677 theatres)
8. Puss in Boots — $7.5 mil ($10.4 mil, in 3,005 theatres)
9. Tower Heist — $7.3 mil ($10.2 mil, in 2899 theatres)
10. The Descendants — $7.2 mil ($9.2 mil, in only 433 theatres)
In limited release, The Descendants proved utterly dominant. Fox Searchlight’s George Clooney drama, which is already earning a deafening amount of Oscar buzz (we’ll see what the New York Film critics have to say about the film at 10 a.m., Tuesday, November 29th), expanded onto 433 screens on Friday, and it increased 505 percent to $7.2 million over three days ($9.2 million over five), giving The Descendants a tremendous $16,628 per theater average and a ten-day total of $10.7 million.
Fellow Oscar contender My Week with Marilyn began its run with $2.1 million in five days, the Marilyn Monroe picture earning $311,000 from 183 theaters Wednesday and Thursday, expanding into 244 theaters for the weekend, when it earned $1.8 million more. Marilyn ticked up by a strong 13 percent on Saturday, the film earning an “A-” CinemaScore grade.
As part of the hype machine for Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, the film’s publicists arranged for the December/January cover of Teen Vogue, which will hit newsstands any day now. The following is a video of Hugo’s teen distaff star, Chlöe Grace Moretz, taken the day of the photo shoot.
