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Box office palooza, weekend update: Dragon kicked it
- Dragon still holding well. DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon narrowly edged out Lionsgate’s new superhero spoof Kick-Ass [KCKAS] to rank as the top movie this weekend, falling only 20% to $20 million, topping our estimate by $5.5 million. To date, the movie has grossed $158.6 million domestically, and we are leaving our domestic estimate for a total of $211 million unchanged, although, if anything, our estimate seems beatable, because of the strong hold, good word of mouth, and the fact that there are no other meaningful animated family or 3-D movies out until May 21 when DreamWorks’ Shrek Forever After [SHRK4] hits theaters. The international cume to date of $176.5 million is pacing moderately below our $300 million estimate. Domestic box drives DVD sales, so domestic upside is more important. Also, with major markets to come in Asian — including China, Japan, and Korea, where the dragon theme may work well culturally — we think it’s too early to assume a meaningful variance to our international estimate.
- Weekend rundown. Box office for the top 12 movies over the weekend rose 13.4% y/y to $113.9 million, according to preliminary data from boxofficemojo.com, above our estimate for a 3.6% drop, primarily because of Kick-Ass, where we had a very low estimate of only $4 million, which was never adjusted for late tracking buzz that it could do $30 million. Ultimately, the movie missed this talk and pulled in $19.8 million. New opener Death at a Funeral, from Sony, delivered only $17 million, versus our $26 million estimate. Our bottoms-up 2Q10 industry box office estimate is tweaked up 10 basis points to 10.3% growth, still near our theater models.
- Next weekend outlook. We forecast a 24.6% y/y decline in domestic box office for the top 12 movies next weekend to $78.6 million. We see CBS Films’ The Backup Plan [PLANB], a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Lopez, first with $12.0 million in its opening weekend. However, to keep from raising our domestic Dragon estimate we are assuming a 45% w/w plunge in receipts to only $11.5 million. If the movie once again holds down only 20% it could again win the weekend. We see Kick-Ass third with $10.8 million in its second weekend. Last year’s top movie, Obsessed, tallied $28.6 million in its opening weekend.
- Peer inside for more movie palooza. Please look inside this note for bottoms-up box office estimates for the year, including predictions of top 20 movies for the year and by quarter, top movies by week, top 10 movies by studio, and our take on the 3-D and animated slates for year.
Tag(s): KCKAS, SHRK4, PLANB
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By Barton Crockett on Friday, April 23, 2010 @ 04:00 PM
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