LOS ANGELES — Young adults powered summer’s riskiest movie to the top of the box-office chart last weekend, while families failed to turn out for what is looking like summer’s biggest flop.
Despite a divide in reactions along age lines, director Christopher Nolan’s thriller Inception opened to a strong $63 million, according to an estimate from distributor Warner Bros.
Walt Disney Studios’ new version of the classic tale The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, meanwhile, sold a weak $17.6 million worth of tickets last weekend and $24.7 million since it debuted July 14. That’s the worst opening for any big-budget film this summer.
It came in third at the box office behind Despicable Me, which drew much of the family audience Sorcerer’s was after. Universal Pictures’ animated comedy declined 42 percent from its strong opening to $33 million, indicating that word-of-mouth was relatively strong.
While Inception, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as an agent who invades targets’ dreams, is not a mega-hit out of the gate, it got off to a verygood start. That’s particularly true considering that it’s one of the few high-profile movies this summer that’s not a sequel or based on a book or video game.
The highest ever opening for a film not based on source material was $77 million for Avatar last winter. Inception failed to reach that stratosphere, it seems, due to its narrow appeal. With a PG-13 rating it couldn’t get children, while adults over 35 simply didn’t turn out in large numbers, representing only 27 percent of the audience.
Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, which together spent $160 million to produce Inception, will need it to play well for several weeks to make good on their sizable investment, which also includes more than $100 million in worldwide marketing costs.
Inception has virtually no chance of approaching the $1 billion worldwide gross of Nolan’s last movie, The Dark Knight, which the studio cited regularly in advertisements for the new picture. But if Inception plays well in the coming weeks it could approach $200 million domestically and rake in that much or more overseas, becoming a solid hit.
Disney, which spent $150 million in 2008 to make The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, knew the film’s advertising was not generating much interest among audiences and made several moves to counteract that weakness, including pushing up the opening from Friday to July 14 to create pre-weekend buzz and offering 2-for-1 tickets online. But audiences just didn’t take to the picture, despite the pedigree of producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Jon Turteltaub, who worked together on the hit National Treasure films.
Unless The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a huge success overseas, it’s destined to be a major money loser for Disney. In its first major foreign opening, the film started with a good but not great $4.8 million in Russia.
Apprentice was greenlighted by Disney’s prior executive regime under former Chairman Dick Cook and production President Oren Aviv. However, it was the first advertising campaign overseen by the studio’s new marketing President M.T. Carney, a movie-business outsider hired in April.
BOX OFFICEThe top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are: 1. Inception, Warner Bros., $62,785,337, 3,792 locations, $16,557 average, $62,785,337, one week.
2. Despicable Me, Universal, $32,803,660, 3,501 locations, $9,370 average, $118,434,555, two weeks.
3. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Disney, $17,619,622, 3,504 locations, $5,028 average, $24,708,059, one week.
4. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Summit, $13,420,480, 4,001 locations, $3,354 average, $264,791,897, three weeks.
5. Toy Story 3, Disney, $11,998,276, 3,177 locations, $3,777 average, $362,965,378, five weeks.
6. Grown Ups, Columbia, $9,911,016, 3,074 locations, $3,224 average, $129,165,357, four weeks.
7. The Last Airbender, Paramount, $7,755,153, 2,805 locations, $2,765 average, $115,138,607, three weeks.
8. Predators, 20th Century Fox, $7,016,502, 2,669 locations, $2,629 average, $40,300,543, two weeks.
9. Knight and Day, 20th Century Fox, $3,608,021, 1,925 locations, $1,874 average,$69,117,400, four weeks.
10. The Karate Kid, Columbia, $2,288,707, 1,532 locations, $1,494 average, $169,290,675, six weeks.
11. Cyrus, Fox Searchlight, $1,093,313, 446 locations, $2,451 average, $5,084,186, five weeks.
12. The Kids Are All Right, Focus, $1,064,359, 38 locations, $28,009 average, $1,813,866, two weeks.
13. The Girl Who Played With Fire, Music Box, $679,533, 139 locations, $4,889 average, $2,018,291, two weeks.
14. Iron Man 2, Paramount, $561,740, 362 locations, $1,552 average, $310,018,590, 11 weeks.
15. The A-Team, 20th Century Fox, $461,023, 428 locations, $1,077 average, $75,207,206, six weeks.
16. I Am Love, Magnolia, $415,112, 140 locations, $2,965 average, $2,662,051, five weeks.
17. Winter’s Bone, Roadside Attractions, $347,380, 21 locations, $16,542 average, $3,064,052, six weeks.
18. Standing Ovation, Rocky Mountain Pictures, $343,125, 625 locations, $549 average, $343,125, one week.
19. Get Him to the Greek, Universal, $294,175, 287 locations, $1,025 average, $60,129,930, seven weeks.
20. Hubble 3D, Warner Bros., $285,273, 53 locations, $5,383 average, $10,855,247, 18 weeks.
MovieStyle, Pages 32 on 07/23/2010