‘The Wolverine’ Tops The Weekend Box Office
The Wolverine managed to slice and dice its competition at the box office this weekend.
James Mangold’s take on the Marvel character was a popular choice with moviegoers over the past three days. According to estimates, the movie managed to score around $55 million from audiences.
While this total is certainly nothing to sneeze at, the figure is considerably less than the number tossed around prior to the film’s release. Many industry insiders believe The Wolverine would easily bring home around $70 million during its first weekend of release.
The $120 million follow-up to the disappointing 2009 effort X-Men Origins: Wolverine is expected to do strong business overseas as well. However, estimates from across the pond have not been made available to the public as of this writing.
Proving that you don’t need huge names or a monstrous budget to make some cash in Hollywood, James Wan’s creepy horror flick The Conjuring continued to post strong numbers this weekend. The modestly-budgeted genre flick generated around $22 million over the past three days. This is roughly $2 million more than it cost to make.
While The Wolverine’s box office haul is no doubt making some folks at 20th Century Fox very happy, the real success story belongs to the independent film Fruitvale Station. Filmmaker Ryan Coogler’s $900,000 drama cracked the top ten with $4.6 million in ticket sales.
The film definitely benefited from the extra theaters over the weekend. As of this writing, the movie’s domestic total is currently perched at an extremely impressive $6.3 million. Hollywood, please take note — not every movie needs to cost $200 million. Sometimes a good story is all you need for success.
According to Forbes, director Woody Allen’s Jasmine Blue managed to score $613,000 on just six screens in New York and Los Angeles. This boils down to $102,128 per screen. The website points out that this is the filmmaker’s best per-screen average on the books.
Here’s a list of this weekend’s top ten and their estimates.
1. The Wolverine – $55 million
2. The Conjuring – $22.1 million
3. Despicable Me 2 – $16 million
4. Turbo – $13.3 million
5. Grown Ups 2 – $11.5 million
6. Red 2 – $9.4 million
7. Pacific Rim – $7.5 million
8. The Heat – $6.8 million
9. R.I.P.D. – $5.8 million
10. Fruitvale Station – $4.6 million
Are you surprised that The Wolverine topped this weekend’s box office?
[Image via 20th Century Fox]
