Ice Age: Continental Drift, the fourth installment of the Blue Sky Studios' computer-animated series, topped the weekend with a solid, but hardly spectacular, $46 million debut.  Last week's champ, Sony's The Amazing Spider-Man fell just 43.6% to an estimated $35 million leading a strong group of holdovers, with 8 of the 9 films in the "Top 10" posting declines under 50% from last weekend.  But this is blockbuster season, and having a film top the charts with just $46 million wasn’t nearly enough to forestall a major 39% drop-off from the same frame last year when the final Harry Potter film debuted with a massive $169.2 million haul.  A 39% decline is potentially a big blow to the prospects of Hollywood's 2012 summer season, but Tinseltown should get it back with interest next weekend when The Dark Knight Rises opens.

 

Continental Drift's opening was about equal to that of the first film in the series, which debuted with $46.6 million in 2002.  It was better than its predecessor, 2009's Dawn of the Dinosaurs ($41.7 million), but well below the bow of the second film The Meltdown, which opened with $68 million.  Continental Drift has already earned $339 million overseas.  The Ice Age series consistently does a lot better outside of North America—Dawn of the Dinosaurs did 78% of its business internationally—perhaps because the films are a lot less obnoxious without the English language cast of celebrity voice actors.

 

The latest Ice Age film received just 35% of its revenue from 3-D showings, yet another indication that North American audiences are increasingly picky about which films they want to see in the extra-dimensional format.  Future prospects for Continental Drift appear to be quite good since the opening weekend audience gave the film a solid "A-" CinemaScore, which was a lot better grade than the movie received from the critics, who gave it just a 40% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  Debut weekend crowds were almost evenly split between the genders (51% female) and age-wise as well with 50% of the audience was under 25.

 

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): July 13 - 15, 2012
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./ Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	Ice Age: Continental Drift	$46,000,000	3,881	$11,853	$46,000,000	1
2	The Amazing Spider-Man	$35,000,000	4,318	$8,106	$200,900,000	2
3	Ted	$22,147,000	3,303	$6,705	$158,993,000	3
4	Brave	$10,695,000	3,392	$3,153	$195,596,000	4
5	Magic Mike	$9,030,000	3,090	$2,922	$91,850,000	3
6	Savages	$8,735,000	2,635	$3,315	$31,466,000	2
7	Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection	$5,600,000	2,004	$2,794	$55,628,000	3
8	Katy Perry: Part of Me	$3,735,000	2,732	$1,367	$18,588,000	2
9	Moonrise Kingdom	$3,662,000	924	$3,963	$32,427,000	8
10	Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted	$3,500,000	2,285	$1,532	$203,732,000	6

 

The Amazing Spider-Man's box office reign was short, but the film managed to cross the $200 million mark during its second weekend, and it continues to do very well overseas, where it has earned $320.5 million, giving it a worldwide total of $520.5 million.  While it does appear that the Spidey reboot won’t make the billion dollar threshold, it should come in somewhere in the vicinity of $800 million worldwide, which will represent a solid profit for the studio on the $220 million film.  Domestically the debut of The Dark Knight Rises should accelerate Spidey’s box office decline, but by how much?  Check back next week and find out.

 

Seth MacFarlane's Ted further cemented its position as the "R" rated comedy hit of the summer as it declined just 31.2% while earning an estimated $22.1 million and bringing its domestic cumulative to nearly $159 million. Pixar's Brave actually fared quite well in the face of direct competition from the new Ice Age movie, dropping just 45.5% and adding $10.7 million to its four-week total, which has reached $195.6 million.  Within the next week or two Brave should surpass Madagascar 3, which dropped to #10 during its sixth weekend in theaters.