Cars Tops Box Office

June 12, 2006 by Liam
Filed under: Movie News

Cars topped the box office this weekend, although there’s some doubt as to how resoundingly. The Disney/Pixar collaboration earned an estimated $62.8 million Friday-Sunday at just under 4,000 theaters for an average of $15,759 per theater. To put that into a little bit of perspective versus other Disney/Pixar releases, The Incredibles earned $70.4 million when it opened in November 2004 averaging $17,917 per theater. Finding Nemo earned $70.2 million when it opened in May 2003 averaging $20,821 per theater. Even Toy Story 2 averaged $17,734 per theater its first full weekend of release.

So what does this say about Cars? Is the movie a “failure” or is it only a “failure” by other Disney/Pixar standards. Well, for one thing the movie did earn enough to rank as the fourth-highest opening weekend of the year (so far). It also far-surpassed the summer’s “other” animated movie, DreamWorks’ Over the Hedge which earned $38.4 million when it opened a few weekends ago.

I’m personally of the belief that animated movies should be held to a different standard when it comes to “box office”. With movies like X-Men and The Da Vinci Code people will see them once and forget about it. With animated movies, kids will see them sometimes over and over again giving them longevity at the bank. Also, some parents tend to avoid “opening weekends” because of the crowds. For reasons like that, while movies like X-Men and The Da Vinci Code will drop 50-60% on their 2nd weekend of release, a movie like Cars will only drop 20-30%. (Over the Hedge dropped only 29% it’s 2nd weekend.)

Basically, I’m trying to say that you can’t talk about the “disappointing” performance of a movie like Cars until all is said and done. (Of course, I haven’t even seen the movie, so I probably don’t even know what I’m talking about. I’m one of those parents who is waiting for next weekend.)

Elsewhere at the box office, last weekend’s top movie, The Break-Up starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn dropped nearly 50% from last weekend earning $20.5 million in 2nd place. X-Men: The Last Stand fell another 55% earning $15.5 million in 3rd place. Fox’s remake of The Omen finished 4th in its opening weekend with $15.4 million. (The movie has earned $35.7 million since opening Tuesday.) Rounding out the top 5, Over the Hedge brought $10.3 million.

The weekend’s only other major release was Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion which earned $4.6 million in 7th place.

We’ve got a busy weekend coming up with four new releases including The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, The Lake House with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock and Nacho Libre with Jack Black.

For more information, check out our Box Office results.