Dreamworks’ animated feature The Croods scored the second best opening of 2010 and the poorly-reviewed "Die Hard in D.C." known as Olympus Has Fallen surpassed expectations, but the box office was down 35.5% from the same frame last year when The Hunger Games debuted with a massive $152 million.

 

The Croods, which cost $135 million to produce, racked up an estimated $44.7 million, the second best debut of the year after Oz: The Great and Powerful’s $79.1 million.  The Stone Age animated feature earned a solid $63.3 million overseas giving it a worldwide total of $108 million, a far better start than Dreamworks’ most recent animated adventure, Rise of the Guardians, which was such a disappointment at the box office that the studio had to take a $67 million write-down.

 

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): March 22-24, 2013
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./ Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	The Croods	$44,700,000	4,046	$11,048	$44,700,000	1
2	Olympus Has Fallen	$30,500,000	3,098	$9,845	$30,500,000	1
3	Oz The Great and Powerful	$22,031,000	3,805	$5,790	$177,559,000	3
4	The Call	$8,700,000	2,507	$3,470	$30,904,000	2
5	Admission	$6,446,000	2,160	$2,984	$6,446,000	1
6	Spring Breakers	$5,000,000	1,104	$4,529	$5,407,000	2
7	The Incredible Burt Wonderstone	$4,275,000	3,160	$1,353	$17,365,000	2
8	Jack the Giant Slayer	$2,965,000	2,560	$1,158	$59,052,000	4
9	Identity Thief	$2,545,000	2,166	$1,175	$127,727,000	7
10	Snitch	$1,930,000	1,807	$1,068	$40,343,000	5

 

Prospects are solid for The Croods in large part because the opening weekend audience, which was 57% female and 45% under 25, gave the film a solid "A" CinemaScore.  With most kids getting their spring school breaks over the next couple of weeks and no real animated family movie competition until Epic opens in late May, The Croods should enjoy a nice long run. Interestingly only 38% of The Croods revenue came from 3-D, yet another indication that the extra dimension is losing its appeal in many genres now that the 3-D ticket surcharge is so high. 

 

Antoine Fuqua’s Olympus Has Fallen has taken a lot of heat from the critics largely because this tale of a lone semi-disgraced Secret Service agent trapped in a captured (and largely destroyed) White House who thwarts the plans of a well-organized gang of terrorists is hugely derivative of the Die Hard films.  But audiences evidently don’t care as much about originality as they do about execution, and the R-rated Olympus Has Fallen brought in a better-than-expected $30 million.  And this larger-than-expected audience gave the flag-waving action film an "A-" CinemaScore.  FilmDistrict, which produced the $70 million film, went on a "Red States" ad binge and Olympus definitely performed better in more conservative parts of the country.  Will this strategy pay off in continued strong weekends, or will Olympus suffer a major decline next week? 

 

Sam Raimi’s Oz: The Great and Powerful finished in third place with an estimated $22 million, a 46.6% drop in its third weekend.  So far the film has earned $177.6 million domestically and $178.8 million overseas for a worldwide total of $356.4 million.

 

Last week’s surprise #2 film, the Halle Berry thriller The Call dropped 49.2% as it brought in an estimated $8.7 million for a domestic total of $31 million, which already puts the $13 million movie in the black.

 

Fifth place went to Admission, a dramedy starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd opened below expectations with an estimated $6.4 million.  While there is little chance that the $13 million film will lose money, it isn’t likely to become a big moneymaker either.

The raunchy Spring Breakers, which relies for much of its appeal on the apparent delights of seeing squeaky clean former Disney TV stars mired in a sleazy "R-rated" spring break saga, expanded to over 1,000 theaters and earned an estimated $5 million. 

 

Warner Bros.’ Steve Carrell dueling magicians comedy The Incredible Burt Wonderstone dropped to seventh in its second weekend.  So far this commercial misfire has earned just $17.3 million in spite of a cast full of big time comedy stars.

 

Another Warner Bros. underachiever, Bryan Singer’s Jack the Giant Slayer ended up in 8th with an estimated $3 million, which brings the $195-million tentpole’s four-weekend domestic total to just $59 million.

 

The latest Studio Ghibli animated feature From Up on Poppy Hill, which was co-written by grandmaster Hayao Miyazaki and directed by his son Goro, expanded from 2-6 theaters in its second week of U.S. release.  So far the film has earned just $132,500 here in North America, but more than $60 million overseas.

 

Check back next week to see if the oft-delayed, big-budget G.I. Joe Retaliation, the third potential studio tentpole to debut in March, can manage to dislodge The Croods.