Mar 4, 2012

And the First Blockbuster of 2012 Is...?

By  at 5:02 PM    No comments

With proper awards season over, Hollywood partied. And so did the weekend box office.
A baby Hangover packed 'em in like a baby Hangover, while a kiddie movie mowed 'em all down like a monster. 
The Artist could only stand by and watch (in silence, of course).
Dr. Seuss' The Lorax opened at No. 1 with the year's first blockbuster debut: $70.7 million.
The outsized Friday-Sunday take is the biggest ever for a movie based on a Dr. Suess tale, and the third-biggest ever for a March release.
Project X, the no-name, extreme-teen comedy from The Hangover franchise's Todd Phillips, rocked second in the weekend standings with $20.8 million.
The opening was about half that of the first Hangover, which was appropriate because the budget was about half that of the first Hangover.
Overall, 2012 continued to be a rebound year for the movies. The box office was up more than 25 percent for the same weekend last year, when Rango led the pack with $38 million.
Elsewhere, after moving onto its largest number of screens yet, The Artist finally cracked the Top 10. Still the Best Picture champ was hardly a world-beater. Project X, for one, averaged more than three times as much money per theater as the award-winner.
Act of Valor, last weekend's No. 1 movie, dropped to third, but held strong, and upped its domestic total to $45.2 million.
The debut for the Adult Swim-spawned Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie was not exactly awesome: $95,000 at 25 theaters.
Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd's Wanderlust wandered out of the Top 10 after a stay of just one weekend. The $30 million-ish comedy, which got OK reviews, for what it's worth, has grossed $12.4 million domestically. 
Here's the rundown of the weekend's top movies, per Friday-Sunday domestic estimates as reported by the studios and Exhibitor Relations:
  1. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, $70.7 million
  2. Project X, $20.8 million
  3. Act of Valor, $13.7 million
  4. Safe House, $7.2 million
  5. Tyler Perry's Good Deeds, $7 million
  6. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, $6.9 million
  7. The Vow, $6.1 million
  8. This Means War, $5.6 million
  9. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, $4.7 million
  10. The Artist, $3.9 million

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