2012 opened with a bang, amassing $65M in its debut weekend, exceeding most industry expectations. The film opened better than my $58M prediction and was a much needed boost for star John Cusack who has stumbled at the box office with his last few films, Igor ($19.5M total), War, Inc. ($581K total), Grace is Gone ($51K total) and The Martian Child ($7.5M total).   2012 took in a muscular $19.1K per screen in over 3400 locations. The film took in $23.6M on Friday, bumped up to $24.8M on Saturday and fell a reasonable 30% on Sunday for an estimated $16.6M. Although it didn’t break any real records, 2012 now has the 7^th highest opening weekend during the month of November. Take a look at the top 10.

 

2012 will get knocked down a slot this weekend when Twilight: New Moon opens and will also be in for a steep decline in its second frame with a large portion of its audience rushing to see the latest installment in the vampire saga. The reviews (read my review here) haven’t been too kind to the disaster flick and that may also hurt its box office potential over the next few weeks. Either way Rolland Emmerich has another monster hit on his hands and his plan to follow up the movie with a television series called 2013 is looking like a good prospect. The series would pick up after the film and focus on the world being rebuilt after the global catastrophe.

Pirate Radio based on the true story of a group of seafaring rock and roll deejays whose “pirate radio” captivated and inspired 1960’s Britain hit rough seas coming in 11^th place with $2.9M, very close to my $3M call. The reviews have been very good but the film was at a disadvantage from the start. Stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Bill Nighy aren’t box office draws, the marketing campaign has been pretty weak, the original title of the film, The Boat That Rocked, was recently changed and film debuted on only 882 screens. Pirate Radio may float its way to about $10M by the end of its voyage.

Having Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry in your corner can do wonders at the box office. Both serve as executive producers on Precious and clearly they have had quite the impact on the box office performance of this film. Precious collected an amazing $6.1M on 174 screens for a scorching $35.0K average. With other holdovers such as The Fourth Kind and This Is It having sharp declines, Precious was able to finish the weekend in 4^th place. The film has major award season buzz going for it and as it expands into more theatres in the coming weeks, Precious may just turn out to be this years  Slumdog Millionaire (in terms of box office, I’m not saying it will win Best Picture at the Oscars… although it will more than certainly be nominated).

Among holdovers, Disney’s A Christmas Carol enjoyed a great hold, easing off 26% to collect another $22.3M, bringing its total to $63.3M after 10 days. With The Thanksgiving holiday, not to mention Christmas, right around the corner, Carol should continue to hold up very well. I had the film pegged to drop more, 35%, but alas I was proven wrong.

To see how the rest of the top 10 shaped up and how other predictions for the weekend fared, check out the chart below.

Be sure to come back Thursday for my predictions for this weekend’s releases, Twilight: New Moon, Planet 51 and The Blind Side.

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