With six new wide releases to pick from, moviegoers chose to shell out for Warner Bros.’ CG-animated TMNT, the latest incarnation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property. The film earned an estimated $25 million over the weekend to snatch the box office title from two-time champion 300, also from Warner Bros. The feat was especially impressive since more advertising dollars were spent on publicizing Fox Atomic’s The Hills Have Eyes 2 and Sony’s Reign Over Me.
Winning the Friday night bout boded well for TMNT, which proved to be more than Saturday matinee kiddie favorite. Long-time followers of Peter Laird’s and Kevin Eastman’s comic-book creation were no doubt out in force for the film’s opening, contributing heavily to its successful bow. How well it does next week against Disney’s Meet the Robinsons will determine just how instrumental that built-in audience was. If the movie, like 300, is able to reach beyond the comic book crowd, expec to see a lot more turtle power in the merchandising sector over the next few months.
Animated by Imagi in Hong Kong, TMNT was made for around $35 million, a modest budget for an animated feature by Hollywood standards. Still, the film managed a bigger opening than far more expensive toon releases of late, including the DreamWorks Animation/Aardman collaboration Flushed Away, which carried a price tag in $150 million ballpark and bowed to $18.8 million back in November. As computer-generated animation continues to migrate overseas, studios that have set up their toon pipelines in the U.S. will have to find ways of lowering budgets in order to compete with the independent international co-productions that are popping up to challenge the big boys.
Dropping a notch to the No. 2 spot, 300 brought in an estimated $20.5 million over the weekend, bringing its three-week total to around $162 million. Meanwile, Paramount’s heavily promoted action thriller, Shooter, debuted to a lackluster $14.5 million (est.), running a neck-and-neck race with Buena Vista’s Wild Hogs, which is now in its fourth week. The No. 5 spot is also a bit too close to call, with New Line’s The Last Mimzy, Sony’s Premonition and Fox Atomic’s The Hills Have Eyes 2 all earning about $10 million. Fellow newcomers Reign Over Me from Sony and Lionsgate’s Pride had weak showings, earning $8 million and $4 million respectively.
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