1. Underworld Awakening (Sony Pictures) NEW [3,078 Theaters]
Friday $9.4M, Saturday $9.9M, Weekend $25M
Sony Pictures/Screen Gems’ fourquel Underworld Awakening is playing better than its previous installment, which is rare for franchises domestically. It’s now the #2 opener in the series. It’s also always a good sign for this kind of genre movie when Saturday’s grosses go up from Friday’s even if it’s weather-related. The Kate Beckinsale horror actioner garnered an ‘A-’ CinemaScore from audiences and won the weekend easily. “Right where we wanted to be and in this crowded market pretty great,” a Sony exec emailed me.
2. Red Tails (LucasFilm/Fox) NEW [2,512 Theaters]
Friday $6M, Saturday $8.7M, Weekend $19M
Hollywood studios were stunned by how well the No. 2 film, George Lucas banner film Red Tails, did in matinees Friday. Until they discovered that the Lucasfilm/Twentieth Century Fox movie’s marketing inside the African-American community resulted in busloads of schoolkids and midday filmgoers for the Tuskegee airmen’s story. Despite fears that this pic appeared very frontloaded, it went up a whopping +40% from Friday ot Saturday and kept surprising by flying towards $20M. It boasted an ’A’ CinemaScore from audiences.
3. Contraband (Universal) Week 2 [2,870 Theaters]
Friday $3.6M, Saturday $5.7M, Weekend $12.5M (-49%), Cume $46.4M
Bad weather hurt all the holdovers by inflating their Friday to Friday drops. Universal’s R-rated thriller Contraband was last Martin Luther King weekend’s big winner and would have fallen even milder than -50% without the severe storm.
4. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (Warner Bros) Week 5 [2,630 Theaters]
Friday $3.1M, Saturday $4.6M, Weekend $10.5M, Cume $11.3M
Warner Bros’ Oscar-buzzed 9-11 emotionfest Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close expanded in its 5th weekend into 2,630 theaters Friday. Its ‘A-’ CinemaScore from audiences will aid its good word-of-mouth.
5. Haywire (Relativity) NEW [2,439 Theaters]
Friday $2.9M, Saturday $3.5M, Weekend $8.5M
5. Beauty And The Beast 3D (Disney) Week 2 [2,625 Theaters]
Friday $2.1M, Saturday $3.8M, Weekend $8.5M (-54%), Cume $33.3M
Relativity’s R-rated Haywire actioner is in a dead heat with Disney’s holdover Beauty And The Beast 3D so this will be a photo finish in the morning. I felt Haywire was marketed very poorly. But it’s shocking to see a Steven Soderbergh-directed film receive a rare ‘D+” CinemaScore from audiences.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/first-b ... ore-218053
