Box Office Reanimated

Weekend Recap 9/28-30/2012

When Hotel Transylvania opened its doors, so did theaters as audiences finally began to come back to the movies. The animated film debuted to a healthy $42.5 million in first place.

That's the biggest September opening ever (surpassing Sweet Home Alabama's $35.6 million), the biggest opening ever for Sony Pictures Animation (surpassing Cloudy with a Chance of Meatball's $31 million), the second-biggest opening of an Adam Sandler film (behind only The Longest Yard's $58.6 million), and is Sony's eighth #1 film of the year. Not bad, huh?

But the good fortune didn't stop there as indie action film Looper opened in second place with a strong $20.8 million. That was followed by the three big movies from last weekend, End of Watch, Trouble with the Curve, and House at the End of the Street, which each brought in over $7 million for third, fourth, and fifth place, respectively.

In limited release, Pitch Perfect surprised in sixth place with $5.1 million. Coming from only 335 theaters, Pitch Perfect had by far the best per-location average of the weekend at over $15,000 per site! It opens everywhere next weekend where, based on its success this past weekend, may actually give Taken 2 a run for its money.

In seventh place, Finding Nemo 3D grossed $4 million, while Resident Evil Retribution (review here), The Master (review here), and Won't Back Down rounded out the Top Ten with over $2 million each, for eighth, ninth, and tenth place, respectively. The film to highlight there is Won't Back Down, which in its first weekend is already considered one of 20th Century Fox's biggest bombs ever.

Here's a snapshot of the Top Ten Weekend Films domestically:

#	Title	Weekend Gross	Theater Avg	Total Gross
1	Hotel Transylvania	$42.5 million	$12,690	$42.5 million
2	Looper	$20.8 million	$6,951	$20.8 million
3	End of Watch	$7.8 million	$2,805	$26 million
4	Trouble with the Curve	$7.3 million	$2,272	$23.5 million
5	House at the End of the Street	$7.1 million	$2,302	$22.2 million
6	Pitch Perfect	$5.1 million	$15,223	$5.1 million
7	Finding Nemo 3D	$4 million	$1,515	$36.4 million
8	Resident Evil 5	$2.99 million	$1,255	$38.7 million
9	The Master	$2.7 million	$3,154	$9.6 million
10	Won’t Back Down	$2.6 million	$1,033	$2.6 million