The Thanksgiving holiday is typically a huge one for the nation’s theaters and this year is no exception and… a potential record-breaker.
An unexpected boost on Thanksgiving day may have come in the form of early bird shoppers (and potential moviegoers) descending upon shopping malls (most of which have movie theaters anchoring them) that offered up extended “Black Thursday” shopping hours.
With The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 leading the way the industry may have a chance to beat 2009’s best ever Turkey day holiday frame and its $273 million five-day (Wednesday through Sunday) total.
The first indication of this was the overall Wednesday gross of around $44.6 million (the Wednesday before T-day in record ’09 was $41.4M) which was about 23% ahead of the pre-Thanksgiving Thursday last year.
The continued strength of Summit’s Breaking Dawn, Part 2 and a nearly $13 million take for the day was was supplemented by fellow holdovers including Sony’s Skyfall with nearly $7.5 million, Disney’s Lincoln with $4.21 million and the debuts of Paramount’s release of Dreamworks animated Rise of the Guardians with $4.85 million, FilmDistrict’s Red Dawn with $4.2 million and Fox’s Life of Pi in 3-D with $3.675 million. Here is the Wednesday breakdown:
Top Movies for Wed., Nov. 21 1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (Lionsgate) – $12.8 million/$175.5 million to date (Unofficial) 2. Skyfall (Sony) – $7.4 million/$178 million to date (Unofficial) 3. Rise of the Guardians (Paramount) – $4.85 million (Unofficial) 4. Lincoln (Disney) $4.21 million/$32.291 million to date (Official as reported by Disney) 5. Red Dawn (Film District) $4.2 million (Unofficial) 6. Wreck-It Ralph (Disney) – $3.746 million/$130.248 million (Official as reported by Disney) 7. Life of Pi (Fox) – $3.675 million (Official as reported by Fox) 8. Flight (Paramount) – $1.272 million/$64.8 million to date (Unofficial) 9. Silver Linings Playbook (Weinstein Co.) – $656,000/$1.205 million to date (Official as reported by Weinstein Co.) 10. Argo (Warner Bros.) – $600,000/$93.604 million to date (Official as reported by Warner Bros.)
Thursday reflected particularly solid movie-going with a near 27% increase over Thanksgiving Thursday in 2011 with over $38 million (T-day in record ’09 was $41.0M) in box office generated for the day.
Here is the Thursday breakdown:
Top Movies for Thu., Nov. 22 1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (Lionsgate) – $8.0 million/$183.9 million to date (Unofficial) 2. Skyfall (Sony) – $7.7 million/$185.7 million to date (Unofficial) 3. Lincoln (Disney) $4.867 million/$37.157 million to date (Official as reported by Disney) 4. Life of Pi (Fox) – $4.525 million/$8.2 million to date (Official as reported by Fox) 5. Rise of the Guardians (Paramount) – $3.7 million/$8.6 million to date (Unofficial) 6. Red Dawn (Film District) $3.27 million/$7.5 million to date(Unofficial) 7. Wreck-It Ralph (Disney) – $2.504 million/$132.752 million (Official as reported by Disney) 8. Flight (Paramount) – $1.48 million/$66.3 million to date (Unofficial) 9. Argo (Warner Bros.) – $635,000/$94.239 million to adte (Official as reported by Warner Bros.) 10. Silver Linings Playbook (Weinstein Co.) – $610,000/$1.8 million to date (Unofficial)
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