With an estimated domestic weekend total of $26 million, The Golden Compass isn’t proving to be the blockbuster New Line had hoped for, but its performance was strong enough to rule a frame marked by low turnout. The fantasy flick knocked Disney’s Enchanted down a peg to the No. 2 spot with around $10.7 million, which pushed it across the $100 million mark worldwide.
Based on Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials saga, The Golden Compass is one of many literary adaptations vying to become the next Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Chronicles of Narnia. New Line, which released Peter Jackson’s Rings trilogy, sunk a reported $180 million into Compass, hoping it would capture the same audience and spawn a series of successful sequels. The pic is instead off to a slow start, but could get a nice boost when schools let out for the winter holidays. It opened a couple days earlier in a number of markets overseas and has earned about $55 million internationally.
Sony Screen Gems’ This Christmas may have a much lower profile, but it’s turning out to be one of the most profitable films of the fall season. Made for a scant $13 million, the family dramedy has made approximately $42,7 million domestically and holds onto third place for the second consecutive week. Warner Bros.’ holiday comedy Fred Claus is also showing legs, actually moving a couple notches up the chart to the No. 4 spot with an estimated $4.6 million for the weekend and a worldwide gross in the $73 million ballpark.
Paramount’s Beowulf rounds out the top five with around $4.4 million contributing to a domestic take of Nearly $76 million. Foreign business for the performance-capture fantasy pic is almost a mirror image with an estimated $75 million bringing the worldwide gross to about $150 million. The digital account of English literature’s oldest monster slayer has been the top choice for moviegoers overseas for several weeks, finally yielding to the CG-laden Golden Compass.
The highest per-theater average of the weekend goes to Fox Searchlight’s Juno. Director Jason Reitman’s coming-of-age comedy earned more than half a million dollars in just seven theaters over the weekend and is shaping up to be this year’s Little Miss Sunshine. Critical response and word-of-mouth should help the film expand rapidly and hold its own against more commercial fare, including 20th Century Fox’s live-action/CG Alvin and the Chipmunks and Warner Bros.’ adaptation of the Richard Matheson horror novel I Am Legend. Both films open in wide release this weekend.
