Weekend Box Office: People in New York and Los Angeles see Wes Anderson movie
Let’s lead with the limited release, because it seems no box office report is complete without some record being broken. Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom scored the highest per screen average ever with $167,250 per screen on four screens over the four-day weekend, for a $523,000 take, positioning itself as the summer’s auteur breakthrough in the Midnight In Paris mold. (That rustling sound you hear is the furtive rubbing of corduroy.) Driven by stronger-than-usual reviews—including the coveted A.V. Club bump—Moonrise Kingdom will face Anderson’s usual problem of playing outside arthouses, but arthouse business alone should account for a lot and a cast of recognizable names (Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, et al.) might give it some traction in the multiplex. Also performing well: The sentimental French import The Intouchables, which broke its own share of box office records domestically, and took $34,350 per screen on four screens here, despite a tepid critical reception. Meanwhile, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Bernie continue to add theaters and perform solidly, with $6,671 per screen on 1,233 screens and $5,985 per screen on 194 screens, respectively.
After a full month on top, The Avengers finally yielded the floor to Men In Black 3, which frankly could use the money, since the long development process and egregious production budget put it at least $230 million in the hole. Over the four-day Memorial Day holiday, MIB 3 earned $70 million. That $70 million is considered good but not great by box office analysts shows how absurdly inflated the whole summer blockbuster enterprise has gotten. (The additional $133.2 million the film made overseas, however, pushes the overall number much closer to “great.”) Chernobyl Diaries, on the other hand, failed unambiguously, limping into fifth on its opening weekend with $8 million. Once word circulated that there were no diaries or journals or chronicles of any kind, it was effectively dead in the water.
For more detailed numbers, visit Box Office Mojo.