Weekend Box Office 7/25: INCEPTION #1, SALT Big

[AndyDursin]

SORCERERS APPRENTICE held surprisingly well for Disney...SALT opened real big....INCEPTION holding #1 big-time.

http://www.deadline.com/2010/07/angies- ... -big-no-1/

FRIDAY PM: Hollywood expected Inception to hold well in the large markets and on both coasts. But Salt definitely put some pepper into Friday's and this weekend's estimated box office, according to my sources. Thanks to these big Top 2, the overall weekend grosses looks close to $160M, or +10% from last year. The other newcomer Ramona and Beezus joins an already crowded family film market. (Figures will be refined in the morning):

1. Chris Nolan's Inception for Warner Bros/Legendary Pictures will still be the No. 1 movie for its 2nd weekend in release, inciting exactly the intense interest from watercooler talk everyone thought it would. It went into today having made $100+M in the U.S. and Canada in just 7 days -- only the 5th film and the only original 2D movie to accomplish that this year. Inception made a big $14.4M Friday from 3,792 locations for a Superglue-like hold of -34% compared to a week ago. (Though one rival studio pegs Friday to a lesser $13.8M for -37%.) It's expected to have a $43M weekend and new cume of $143M. Ah, what dreamy legs for Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, and the rest of the great cast on this $160M-budget scifi caper. Internationally, Inception has made a World Cup-slowed $16.5M going into today. But this weekend, it adds 29 markets including Australia, France, Japan and Mexico and rolls out in about 50 territories by August 1st. Look for giant grosses.

2. Sony Pictures set a new salary high for Angelina Jolie to star in this weekend's No. 2 movie Salt opening in 3,612 theaters. Still, the studio was gobsmacked when she set about earning every penny, whether it was long autograph-signing sessions at the pic's premieres or making a much-hyped panel appearance at Comic-Con. That was just a few of the marketing moves Sony made to sell Salt but there were more by Jeff Blake and Marc Weinstock and their team: concocting a high-octane ad campaign, devising a 9-week episodic online game, junketeering in Washington DC with a reception/tour of the International Spy Museum, even exploiting that recent real-life Russian sleeper spy ring in the news because of its similarities to the movie plot. "The Anna Chapman story resulted in extensive off entertainment page coverage mentioning Salt," one Sony exec explained to me.

The Philip Noyce-directed pic had been tracking extremely well for weeks by garnering solid unaided awareness overall with total awareness strongest in older females and males, followed by younger males. (Younger females were a bit behind...) What other actress plays so well with both women and men? And she's also the only high-priced actress who can open a kickass actioner right now -- which is why the lead role intended for Tom Cruise underwent a sex change. And open SALT Jolie did with a $13.8M Friday and expected $37M weekend that could climb to $40M if there's a Saturday bump. With a supposed cost of only a little over $100M (Sony claims that's because of production incentives from shooting back East), the studio is confident it has a hit here and overseas. Salt is opening in a few territories over the next few days (i.e. Colombia, India, Egypt, Jordan, Aruba, Jamaica, etc) while next week it releases in countries like Russia, Korea, Japan and Brazil. The film will continue to roll out all over the world through October.

3. Despicable Me (3D) (Universal) Week 3 [3,600 Theaters]
Friday $7.8M (-22%), Estimated Weekend $25M, Estimated Cume $162.6M

Another great hold for Illumination's bargain-budget toon.

4. The Walden Media/Fox joint venture Ramona And Beezus, based on the classic children's books by Beverly Cleary, is another of those wonderful young girl films championed by femme filmmakers. (For this one -- Elizabeth Allen, Denise Di Novi, and Alison Greenspan). Awareness and interest were solid with younger females followed by older females, but young girls needed the presence of Disney Channel star Selena Gomez. Even with all this going for it, Hollywood expected Ramona to open to only a $10M weekend, and the pic may reach that after Friday's $3M from 2,719 venues. (Some put it as low as $2.8M, as high as $3.5M.) Remember, this pic was inexpensive -- just $15M.

5. Toy Story 3 (3D) Week 6 [2,766 Theaters]
Friday $3.0M, Estimated Weekend $10M, Estimated Cume $380.5M

6. The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Disney) Week 2 [3,504 Theaters]
Friday $3.0M (-45%), Estimated $9.0M, Estimated Cume $41.9M

Excellent 2nd Friday hold after a very disappointing start for Jerry Bruckheimer's dark Nic Cage starrer.

7. Grown Ups (Sony) Week 5 [2,859 Theaters]
Friday $2.3M, Estimated Weekend $7.5M, Estimated Cume $142.3M

8. Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Summit) Week 4 [3,121 Theaters]
Friday $2.2M, Estimated Weekend $6.5M, Estimated Cume $279.1M

9. The Last Airbender (3D) (Paramount) Week 4 [2,127 Theaters]
Friday $1.3M, Estimated Weekend $4.5M, Estimated Cume $123.6M

10. Predators (Fox) Week 3 [1,846 Theaters]
Friday $875K, Estimated Weekend $2.8M, Estimated Cume $46.5M

[AndyDursin]

Official numbers

1 1 Inception WB $43,505,000 -30.7% 3,792 - $11,473 $143,663,000 $160 2
2 N Salt Sony $36,500,000 - 3,612 - $10,105 $36,500,000 $110 1
3 2 Despicable Me Uni. $24,100,000 -26.5% 3,600 +99 $6,694 $161,700,000 $69 3
4 3 The Sorcerer's Apprentice BV $9,685,000 -45.0% 3,504 - $2,764 $42,643,000 $150 2
5 5 Toy Story 3 BV $9,030,000 -24.7% 2,766 -411 $3,265 $379,529,000 $200 6
6 N Ramona and Beezus Fox $8,000,000 - 2,719 - $2,942 $8,000,000 $15 1

7 6 Grown Ups Sony $7,600,000 -23.3% 2,859 -215 $2,658 $142,412,000 $80 5
8 4 The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Sum. $7,033,000 -47.6% 3,121 -880 $2,253 $279,674,000 $68 4
9 7 The Last Airbender Par. $4,173,000 -46.2% 2,127 -678 $1,962 $123,264,000 $150 4
10 8 Predators Fox $2,850,000 -59.4% 1,846 -823 $1,544 $46,568,000 $40 3
11 12 The Kids Are All Right Focus $2,648,000 +148.8% 201 +163 $13,174 $4,963,000 $4 3
12 9 Knight & Day Fox $1,700,000 -52.9% 1,265 -660 $1,344 $72,681,000 $117 5