Beowulf Slays Box Office Competition As Weekend’s Top Movie
Posted November 18, 2007 12:00 pm.
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” Beowulf” ridded a Danish kingdom of a massive beast named Grendel, and was rewarded with a $28.1 million debut weekend and the top spot at the box office.
The animated telling met with little competition, getting a nice boost with 40 per cent of sales coming from special 3-D showings.
“Twenty per cent of the screens produced 40 per cent of the gross,” said Paramount general sales manager Don Harris.
The film was directed by Robert Zemeckis and used performance-capture technology to render lifelike images of its stars Ray Winstone and Angelina Jolie.
“If this isn’t a mandate on the popularity and viability of 3-D, I don’t know what is,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.
Still it wasn’t a banner week for Hollywood , with the top 12 films taking in 29 per cent less than the top 12 in the same weekend last year. Attendance has been down eight of the past nine weekends.
Meanwhile, animated family film ” Bee Movie,” written by Jerry Seinfeld, had the second-highest gross of the weekend with $14.3 million in ticket sales, bringing its total after three weeks to $98.8 million, holding a spot in the top two for the third straight weekend.
The weekend’s other big opender, “Love in the Time of Cholera,” debuted in 10th place with $1.9 million.
Here’s the rest of the weekend’s top 10, with all figures estimated according to Media By Numbers LLC.
1. “Beowulf,” $28.1 million.
2. “Bee Movie,” $14.3 million.
3. “American Gangster,” $13.2 million.
4. “Fred Claus,” $12 million.
5. “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium,” $10 million.
6. “Dan in Real Life,” $4.5 million.
7. “No Country for Old Men,” $3 million.
8. “Lions for Lambs,” $3 million.
9. “Saw IV,” $2.3 million.
10. “Love in the Time of Cholera,” $1.9 million.
