As expected The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 extended its reign for a second weekend with an estimated 3-day total of $42 million.  A host of family-oriented movies debuted as studios attempted to exploit the five-day holiday weekend with a ton of family fare.  The clear winner (at least so far) is Disney’s The Muppets, which earned an estimated $29.5 million over the 3-day weekend (and $42 million for the 5-day, Wednesday to Sunday weekend), but the other new “kid flicks,” the Aardman Animation/Sony co-production Arthur Christmas, and Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of the Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret also have the potential for long runs in spite of less than overwhelming debuts.  Still the total of the top ten films was down 11% from the same weekend last year when the penultimate Harry Potter film remained in the top spot.

 

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): November 25 - 27, 2011
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./ Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1	$42,000,000	4,066	$10,330	$221,300,000	2
2	The Muppets	$29,500,000	3,440	$8,576	$42,000,000	1
3	Happy Feet Two	$13,400,000	3,606	$3,716	$43,773,000	2
4	Arthur Christmas	$12,700,000	3,376	$3,762	$17,000,000	1
5	Hugo	$11,350,000	1,277	$8,888	$15,380,000	1
6	Jack and Jill	$10,300,000	3,029	$3,400	$57,417,000	3
7	Immortals	$8,800,000	2,677	$3,287	$68,632,000	3
8	Puss in Boots	$7,450,000	3,005	$2,479	$135,361,000	5
9	Tower Heist	$7,323,000	2,474	$2,960	$65,380,000	4
10	The Descendants	$7,200,000	433	$16,628	$10,741,000	2

 

While Breaking Dawn’s 5 day-Thanksgiving total of $62.3 remains a tad behind The Twilight Saga: New Moon’s holiday total of $66.3 million in 2009, it is clear that, like the Harry Potter franchise, the Twilight movies have managed to avoid “sequelitis,” the most feared virus in Hollywood, which saps the vitality of once robust franchises and most often manifests itself by the third or fourth film in a series.  Breaking Dawn has already earned a solid $221.3 million at the domestic box office, and the film’s $10,330 per theater average was still the best in the Top 10.  And Breaking Dawn is doing better than New Moon overseas where it has earned $268 million already bringing its worldwide 10-day total to $489.3 million.

 

Like the other two new family films, Disney’s The Muppets has earned sterling notices.  The film’s critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 98% positive, and opening weekend audiences gave the film a strong “A” CinemaScore.  The debut weekend crowd skewed slightly female (53%), and older than normal for a family movie with only 35% of the audience under 18.  In just five days the new Muppets movie has made more than all but one of the previous films in the franchise (though the number of patrons it has attracted has surpassed only the disastrous Muppets in Space movie from 1999, which only earned $16.6 million during its entire run.  In year that has seen successful attempts to revive the X-Men and Planet of the Apes franchises, as well as the conspicuous failure to resurrect Robert E. Howard's Conan, Disney appears to have scored a major success with The Muppets, which benefited from a clever, multi-faceted marketing campaign.

 

The major family film holdover, Happy Feet Two, dropped 37% in its second weekend. So far it has earned just $44.8 million, well under half of the first Happy Feet’s 10-day total of $99.3 million.

 

The other two new films in wide release, both of which were a good deal more expensive than the $45 million dollar Muppet movie, also finished in the top 5.  Arthur Christmas came in fourth with an estimated $12.7 million, which is on the low side for a major release from Aardman Animation (Wallace & Gromit).  With a 92% positive critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes, an “A-“ CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences, and its holiday theme, Arthur Christmas should play well over the next few weeks, though its $3,762 per-theater average is a potentially troubling sign.

 

Martin Scorsese’s Hugo earned an estimated $11.3 million.  The good news is that it was only playing at 1,277 theaters, so it posted the second best per theater average in the top 5 ($8,888) trailing only The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, and Hugo has earned an enviable 97% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  The bad news is that the special effects-heavy drama, which earned 76% of its revenue from 3-D showings, cost $170 million to produce, and will have to earn at least $350 million worldwide just to break even. 

 

This is the season in which a number of films with Oscar potential debut in limited release.  Alexander (Sideways) Payne’s The Descendants, which stars George Clooney, managed to finish at #10 in spite of the fact that it was showing in just 433 theaters.  My Week With Marilyn, which stars Michelle Williams, opened in 244 theaters, while the silent movie homage The Artist debuted in just 4 theaters (but averaged $52,500 per venue), and David Cronenberg’s period drama featuring Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, A Dangerous Method, averaged $45,500 at four locations.  Typically this sort of film attracts an older crowd.  The audience for My Week With Marilyn was 56% female and 50% over 50 years of age.