‘New Moon’ is #1 for second week!
11.30.2009 | By Pau Brunet |
Studio execs should give plenty of thanks to female moviegoers: The Twilight Saga: New Moon and The Blind Side led the best-ever Thanksgiving weekend at the box office by drawing women and families into theaters, while male-centric newcomers Old Dogs and Ninja Assassin only earned so-so numbers.
Following its record-breaking first weekend, first-place finisher New Moon brought in $66 million over the three-day (Friday through Sunday) weekend, driving its cume to a fantastic $230.7 million — the sixth highest of the year, just below Star Trek ($257.7 million). Not far behind, The Blind Side came in at No. 2 with $40.1 million by appealing to audiences who would rather watch a movie about football than stay home for a game on TV. With a $100.3 million total so far, the pigskin pic is Sandra Bullock’s second $100 million hit of the year after this summer’s The Proposal ($164 million).
Disaster pic 2012 ($18 million) continued to perform well, beating a duo of new releases: the Robin Williams-John Travolta buddy pic Old Dogs (fourth place, $16.8 million) and the actioner Ninja Assassin (sixth place, $13.1 million). With a $24.1 million total so far, Old Dogs hasn’t captured the same men-of-a-certain-age crowds that drove Travolta’s Wild Hogs to a $39.7 million debut back in 2007. Meanwhile, Disney’s A Christmas Carol (fifth place, $16 million) got a holiday bump, jumping 30 percent over last weekend to a total of $105.3 million.
Specialty pics found modest success, with the animated Fantastic Mr. Fox earning $7 million Fri.-Sun. in its first wide-release weekend, and The Road grossing $1.5 million at 111 theaters.
Overall, the box office raked in an all-time high of $278 million over the five-day weekend.