Box Office - 'Monsters vs. Aliens' Sets 3-D Record

This weekend, Monsters vs. Aliens set a record for the biggest opening weekend ever for a 3-D movie. It's also the third best debut in the history of the month of March and the top opening weekend of the year. The animated family film raked in $58 million in ticket sales, according to estimates reported by Box Office Mojo, beating this month's debut of Watchmen by a couple million bucks, and cruised to an easy victory at the box office. The movie was an almost guaranteed smash out of the gate. There haven't been too many kid movies this year, and it's been six weeks since Coraline, the last animated film for families. My hunch is that the film will continue to do very well. It received generally strong reviews and with only two family movies on the schedule between now and Memorial Day (Hannah Montana and possibly the animated flick Battle for Terra), Monsters just won't have a lot of competition. What could that mean for its total box office? Maybe $200 million, although that's the ceiling; everything would have to work out beautifully for that to happen. Certainly, you'd have to think $150 - $175 million is within its grasp. The big test will be whether or not it keeps most of its audience next week. The PG-13 supernatural thrilla The Haunting in Connecticut also did very good business, even if, by the numbers, it got dwarfed. But a $23 million start essentially means this one will be incredibly profitable. There wasn't much of a production budget, so if Lionsgate hasn't made back its money yet, that's certainly in the cards in the next week or two. The action flick 12 Rounds opened outside of the top five with $5.3 million, and will likely only generate $11 - $13 million, tops. Yesterday, we briefly mentioned a three-horse race to $150 million between Paul Blart, Slumdog Millionaire, and Taken. We neglected to mention Gran Torino, which will probably come the closest to that mark. It has $146 million versus $142 million for Paul Blart. Taken and Slumdog will likely break $140 million next week. Those four films, plus Watchmen have been the ports in the storm this year for moviegoers. Speaking of Watchmen, I don't remember the last movie that opened with $50 million-plus and four weeks later struggled to make $2 million. The comic book adaptation made almost 60% of its money in the first three days, and about 20% of its revenue came on opening day. The Top Five:
1 - Monsters vs. Aliens - $58 million
2 - The Haunting in Connecticut - $23 million
3 - Knowing - $14.7 million
4 - I Love You, Man - $12.6 million
5 - Duplicity - $7.6 million