Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride earned an impressive $385K in a very limited debut at just five theaters over the past weekend averaging a lively 77K per location.  The stop motion animated feature will open at over 3000 theaters on Friday, September 23.

 

Twelve years ago the Burton-produced The Nightmare Before Christmas was even more impressive in an even more limited debut, taking in $191,000 at just two theaters.  It is difficult to predict how films will fare based on such limited releases, but Burton's morbid elongated character designs for The Corpse Bride are a good bet to score once again in terms of merchandise sales (The Nightmare Before Christmas is legendary in the amount of licensed merchandise sold versus the film's box office take). MacFarlane Toys has the primary U.S. license for The Corpse Bride toys and action figures (see 'MacFarlane Gets Corpse Bride'), while Diamond is importing some very cool Jun Planning Corpse Bride figures from Japan (where Burton is very big -- see 'Jun Planning's Corpse Bride Figures').