14 DAY TRIAL // “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” has met its match at the US box office, with the third installment of the vampire franchise being knocked from the top position by the 3D animated “Despicable Me,” with voices from Steve Carell and Russell Brand. “Eclipse” still held strong though, while the Robert Rodriguez-produced “Predators” fared pretty well on its opening weekend, landing in at number 3, AceShowbiz informs.
Though its predecessor, “New Moon,” managed to hold on to the top position in the US box office for much longer, “Eclipse” is still en route to top it in overall grossing, mostly because of its remarkably strong opening. “Despicable Me” was a surprise even for the movie studio, which would have estimated ticket sales about $20 million lower, but was still very pleased with the results. The same goes for producers of “Predators,” which succeeded in causing quite a splash with moviegoers this weekend.
“‘The Twilight Saga’s Eclipse’ cannot reign on North American Box Office for a quite long time. After debuting on the first spot last weekend, the movie is now beaten by ‘Despicable Me’ which has just been released on July 9. The animation makes an impressive opening by raking in an estimated $60.1 million, much more than it was expected based on pre-release surveys. This makes the biggest-ever opening for an original animated movie not made by Pixar or DreamWorks Animation, putting Universal’s Illumination Entertainment family films unit among the top players in its space, according to Los Angeles Times,” AceShowbiz writes.
“‘We knew we had something good; people in the office were talking about it,’ Universal’s distribution chief Nikki Rocco says as quoted by USA Today. ‘But you never know how you’re going to do when you’re new, especially going up against huge franchises like Twilight and Toy Story.’ The third ‘Twilight’ movie itself drops about 48.5% in ticket sales, adding an approximately $33.4 million on the second weekend. Newcomer ‘Predators,’ meanwhile, does not manage to roar loudly at the domestic chart as it debuts on the third place with an estimated $25.3 million cume,” AceShowbiz says. Even so, the amount is above most expectations.
“Toy Story 3” continues to hold strong, with ticket sales of $22 million, while “The Last Airbender” and “Grown Ups” raked in $17.2 and $16.4 million respectively. “Knight and Day,” the action film / romcom with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz made $7.8 million, “The Karate Kid” $5.7 million, while “The A-Team” and “Cyrus” rounded up the top ten, with only a little over $1 million in ticket sales.
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