Hollywood’s superhero quartet had a fantastic opening weekend. The sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer debuted in the top spot at the North American box office with $57.4 million, slightly surpassing the $56.1 million opening of the original Fantastic Four.
Among other new wide releases, favorite teen detective Nancy Drew premiered in seventh place with a so-so $7.1 million, while the thriller DOA: Dead or Alive, an adaptation of the martial-arts video game, failed to make the Top 10, pulling in just $232,000.
Despite the big opening for Fantastic Four, box office numbers fell for the third straight weekend. After a surge early this year, attendance has slipped to just a fraction ahead of 2006, diminishing prospects of a record summer that many analysts had predicted, according to The Associated Press.
“We’ve seen our advantage over last year slowly being chipped away,” Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations, told AP. “A lot of films are doing what these big summer movies do, open big and drop off fast.”
The Top 12 movies took in $138.7 million, down 4.02 percent from last year’s total of $144.5 million but up 6.39 percent from last weekend’s total of $130.4 million. The Top Three films at the box office this time last year were: Buena Vista’s Cars, which stayed at No. 1 for its second week with $33.7 million in 3,988 theaters, averaging $8,458 per theater; Paramount’s Nacho Libre, which opened in second place with $28.3 million in 3,070 theaters, averaging $9,221 per theater; and Universal’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which opened in third place with $23.9 million in 3,027 theaters, averaging $7,920 per theater. (Click here to read last year’s box office report).
BOX OFFICE TOP 10, ESTIMATES
(Source: Exhibitor Relations, Inc.)
No. 1: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (20th Century Fox, PG)
• Gross: $57.4 million
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 3,959
• Per-theater average: $14,499
No. 2: Ocean’s Thirteen (Warner Bros., PG-13)
• Gross: $19.1 million (-47%)
• Weeks opened: 2
• Theaters: 3,565 (unchanged)
• Per-theater average: $5,359
• Cume to date: $69.8 million
No. 3: Knocked Up (Universal, R)
• Gross: $14.5 million (-26%)
• Weeks opened: 3
• Theaters: 2,907 (+31)
• Per-theater average: $5,000
• Cume to date: $90.4 million
No. 4: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (Buena Vista, PG-13)
• Gross: $12 million (-43%)
• Weeks opened: 4
• Theaters: 3,329 (-673)
• Per-theater average: $3,612
• Cume to date: $273.7 million
No. 5: Surf’s Up (Sony, PG)
• Gross: $9.3 million (-47%)
• Weeks opened: 2
• Theaters: 3,531 (+3)
• Per-theater average: $2,634
• Cume to date: $34.6 million
No. 6: Shrek the Third (DreamWorks, PG)
• Gross: $9 million (-41%)
• Weeks opened: 5
• Theaters: 3,505 (-420)
• Per-theater average: $2,570
• Cume to date: $297.2 million
No. 7: Nancy Drew (Warner Bros., PG)
• Gross: $7.1 million
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 2,612
• Per-theater average: $2,732
No. 8: Hostel: Part II (Lionsgate, R)
• Gross: $3 million (-63%)
• Weeks opened: 2
• Theaters: 2,350 (unchanged)
• Per-theater average: $1,277
• Cume to date: $14.1 million
No. 9: Mr. Brooks (MGM, R)
• Gross: $2.8 million (-43%)
• Weeks opened: 3
• Theaters: 1,923 (-530)
• Per-theater average: $1,466
• Cume to date: $23.4 million
No. 10: Spider-Man 3 (Sony, PG-13)
• Gross: $2.5 million (-42%)
• Weeks opened: 7
• Theaters: 1,822 (-748)
• Per-theater average: $1,372
• Cume to date: $330 million
OTHER OPENINGS
DOA: Dead or Alive (The Weinstein Co., PG-13)
• Gross: $232,336
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 505
• Per-theater average: $460
Eagle vs. Shark (Miramax, R)
• Gross: $21,005
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 3
• Per-theater average: $7,002
Fido (Roadside Attraction, R)
• Gross: $13,400
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 2
• Per-theater average: $6,700
