Disney’s Enchanted held onto the top spot at the North American box office over a weekend that played out much like a repeat of the previous week. Sony ScreenGems’ Last Christmas remained in second place and Paramount’s Beowulf held steady at No. 3. Newcomer Awake from MGM and the Weinstein Co. was close behind, pushing 20 Century Fox’s Hitman out of the No. 4 spot.
Featuring 2D animation that pays homage to the classic Disney fairytale movies, Enchanted pulled in an estimated $17 million in its second week, bringing its domestic total to around $70.6 million. Meanwhile, the performance-capture Beowulf seized another $7.8 million (est.) in its third week for a grand total $68 million at home and $143 million worldwide.
While Enchanted and Beowulf are still recouping their hefty production expenses, This Christmas is proving to be the holiday season’s real success story. Made for around $13 million, the family dramedy has earned approximately $37 million in just two weeks, outpacing more high-profile fare despite a comparatively conservative roll out in 1,858 theaters. The pic should continue to perform well though the winter holidays.
The video game-based Hitman dropped a notch to No. 5 with $5.8 million for the weekend and a two-week domestic gross of approximately $30 million. Last week’s No. 5, Dream Works Animation’s Bee Movie, took a steep tumble to No. 9 in its fifth week, picking up another $4 million to boost its North American take to around $117 million.
One movie that is actually climbing the charts is Miramax’s critically acclaimed No Country for Old Men, a modern western from the Cohen brothers. The release has been expanding gradually over the past four weeks, yielding approximately $23 million so far. The film is doing a bit better than the MGM/Weinstein Co. release The Mist, which has only managed to scare up about $19 million in wide release over the past two weeks.
New Line Cinema’s vfx-laden fantasy flick The Golden Compass sneaked in more than 800 theaters over the weekend. We’ll see if the anticipated word-of-mouth pans out as the kid lit-based movie opens wide this coming weekend.
