Weekend Box Office (July 13 - 15, 2012)
THIS WEEKEND Sandwiched in between the holiday launch of the webslinger and what is sure to be a gargantuan debut for the Caped Crusader is another franchise film, but this one appropriate for young children. Fox unleashes Ice Age: Continental Drift, the fourth installment - and second in 3D - in its lucrative prehistoric toon series which has seen rapid growth in international waters. The main voice cast is back including Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, and Denis Leary who currently co-stars in the chart-topper The Amazing Spider-Man. It is the only new wide release this weekend.
The Ice Age brand remains popular and summer is a great play period for these types of movies. The PG-rated pic follows Madagascar 2 and Brave and with a trio of top-level 3D animated flicks within a six-week period, some parents may choose to sit this one out and save some cash. Reviews have been mixed but they will be irrelevant. This is more about if kids want to return to this well again. But with younger kids always replacing older ones who move on to other movies, and the Ice Age brand living on in the home entertainment world, a sizable audience is sure to turn out.
Plus overseas markets have truly been getting hotter for this franchise with the three films seeing their international tallies skyrocket from $207M to $461M to $691M. With its early release, Drift has already banked over $200M from foreign markets and will continue to see its global haul soar this summer. Ice Age: Continental Drift invades over 3,800 theaters on Friday and may open to about $56M.
Sony's super hero reboot The Amazing Spider-Man got off to a nice start over the long holiday weekend, however it won't have the muscle to be among the top two comic flicks of this summer. Word-of-mouth has been decent but not amazing. The midweek bow means that the sophomore slide will not be as big as usual so a 50% drop would give the 3D webslinger pic about $31M and a cume of $196M after 13 days.
The runaway hit comedy Ted showed off great legs in its second weekend and has no direct competition this time from any new release. So a 40% decline may be in order giving Universal about $19M pushing the cume to a solid $156M. Disney's Brave should take a hit from a new 3D toon brand. Look for a 45% drop to roughly $11M and a $194M total.
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Watch the trailers for Monsters University and Twilight. For reviews of The Amazing Spider-Man and Ted visit The Chief Report.
LAST YEAR Smashing records to the left and to the right, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 blew away the competition with a staggering $169.2M opening weekend, the best in history at the time. Helped by being the first wizard pic in 3D, and the last one overall, the Warner Bros. megahit went on to gross $381M domestically and $1.3 billion worldwide. Falling to second was another huge 3D summer sequel Transformers: Dark of the Moon with $21.3M followed by Horrible Bosses with $17.8M. Zookeeper and Cars 2 rounded out the top five with $12.3M and $8.4M, respectively.
This column is updated three times each week: Thursday (upcoming weekend's summary), Sunday (post-weekend analysis with estimates), and Monday night (actuals). Opinions expressed in this column are those solely of the author.
Last Updated: July 12, 2012 at 10:45AM ET
Watch Gitesh Pandya's weekly box office preview on CNN International airing live each Thursday at 7:40pm ET.