2012 destroys box office, entire world, hopes of indie filmmakers everywhere
Oh, fine, maybe I’m being a bit overdramatic, but y’all know how I get on Sunday afternoons (ornery!). No surprise here – Roland Emmerich’s latest, 2012, annihilated the entire world (and, conversely, most of my warm memories of John Cusack as Lloyd Dobler) to take the weekend box office with $65 million in returns. Considering that 2012 was the only wide release this week, this is pretty much the result I was expecting.
The only other new entries in the box office were all in limited release, so there’s no shock that none of them managed to crack the top ten. PIRATE RADIO came in at eleventh place, playing in only 882 theaters (whereas 2012 played in over 3,400) and making $2.8 million. FANTASTIC MR. FOX averaged about $65,000 per theater, as it’s only playing in four theaters until Thanksgiving. I’m heading to one of those theaters in an hour to take it in a second time, so neener!
This weekend also saw the limited release of three buzzed-about indies. THE MESSENGER made $50,000 playing on three screens, UNCERTAINTY pulled in $12,200 on just one screen, and DARE made $12,000 on two screens. Congrats to all three.
Also of note, PRECIOUS expanded to an additional 156 theaters this week. The film is currently in fourth place, making over $6 million this weekend. It has continued to have a high per-theater average, ringing in around $35,000 per theater, second only to that FANTASTIC fox.
Next week sees the release of the second entry in the TWILIGHT saga, NEW MOON, so let’s start thinking of fun puns for that inevitable headline.
Source Box Office Mojo
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