Woody, Buzz animate sales

LOS ANGELES — The toy market is on a hot streak at movie theaters.

Tom Hanks and Tim Allen’s animated sequel Toy Story 3 had a huge No. 1 debut, pulling in $110.3 million over its opening weekend.

It was only the third animated film to break $100 million in the first weekend, following the second and third Shrek movies.

It’s usually not clear whether an animated movie will be a hit until parents start taking children to matinees on Saturday afternoons.

For Toy Story 3, it was apparent when the sun rose the morning of June 18, as Pixar’s second-ever sequel had already garnered nearly $4 million from midnight screenings.

By Sunday, the 3-D Toy Story 3 had grossed a stellar studio-estimated $109 million in the United States and Canada - not quite as high as the $122 million opening of Shrek the Third in 2007, but easily the best ever for Pixar.

The weekend’s only other new movie in wide release, the Western comic-book adaptation Jonah Hex, played to theaters full of tumbleweeds, opening to a terrible $5.1 million.

The early midnight numbers for Toy Story 3 kicked off a $41 million Friday for the film, the highest ever single day for an animated movie and a clear sign that the follow-up to Pixar’s first feature in 1995 was appealing to adults nostalgic for Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the gang just as much as children seeing them for the first time.

On Saturday, however, Toy Story 3 lost a bit of steam, as ticket sales declined 10 percent - or stayed even not counting Thursday’s midnight shows. Most animated movies, including all of Pixar’s except for Wall-E, have seen a jump on their secondday in theaters thanks to families hitting matinees.

That’s a sign that ticket sales for Toy Story 3 may be more front-loaded than past Pixar movies, which have typically experienced very long box-office runs and ultimately grossed more than four times their opening weekend on average. However, given audience familiarity with the characters, it’s common for sequels to generate a higher percentage of their receipts on the first weekend than original movies.

Toy Story 3 faces an additional challenge in that it will lose many of its 3-D theaters, which have accounted for about 60 percent of themovie’s opening-weekend gross, in a week when The Last Airbender opens in 3-D - and even more theaters the week after that, when the 3-D animated Despicable Me debuts.

The launch of Jonah Hex was the second worst of any movie this year, ahead of only the Saturday Night Live comedy MacGruber. But Jonah, which stars Josh Brolin and Megan Fox, wasn’t an inexpensive comedy, as Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures spent a sizable, if not huge, $47 million on production, including extensive reshoots that apparently did little to increase the film’s appeal.Those who saw Jonah Hex gave it a weak average grade of C plus.

It was a very healthy moviegoing weekend outside of Jonah Hex, as last weekend’s two new movies, The A-Team and The Karate Kid, both dropped less than 50 percent despite the competition from Toy Story 3.

Total receipts rose 31 percent from the same weekend last year, according to Hollywood.com, bringing summer 2010 revenue up to even with 2009, though attendance is down 6 percent.

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. Toy Story 3, Disney, $110,307,189, 4,028 locations, $27,385 average, $110,307,189, one week.

2. The Karate Kid, Columbia, $29,876,295, 3,663 locations, $8,156 average, $107,130,239, two weeks.

3. The A-Team, 20th Century Fox, $14,405,318, 3,544 locations, $4,065 average, $50,427,588, two weeks.

4. Get Him to the Greek, Universal, $6,104,810, 2,592 locations, $2,355 average, $47,844,275, three weeks.

5. Shrek Forever After, Paramount, $5,620,398, 3,207 locations, $1,753 average, $223,076,925, five weeks.

6. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Disney, $5,566,464, 2,605 locations, $2,137 average, $80,800,574, four weeks.

7. Jonah Hex, Warner Bros., $5,379,365, 2,825 locations, $1,904 average, $5,379,365, one week.

8. Killers, Lionsgate, $5,035,755,2,619 locations, $1,923 average, $39,302,411, three weeks.

9. Iron Man 2, Paramount, $2,872,252, 1,612 locations, $1,782 average, $304,210,329, seven weeks.

10. Marmaduke, 20th CenturyFox, $2,474,195, 2,495 locations, $992 average, $27,711,000, three weeks.

11. Sex and the City 2, Warner Bros., $2,411,025, 1,680 locations, $1,435 average, $90,170,101, four weeks.

12. Robin Hood, Universal, $1,422,715, 1,046 locations, $1,360 average, $102,079,505, six weeks.

13. Splice, Warner Bros., $932,470, 944 locations, $988 average, $15,569,488, three weeks.

14. Letters to Juliet, Summit, $790,430, 806 locations, $981 average, $48,591,409, six weeks.

15. Raavan, Reliance Big Pictures, $551,375, 119 locations, $4,633 average, $551,375, one week.

16. Please Give, Columbia Pictures Classics, $475,334, 272 locations, $1,748 average, $2,657,874, eight weeks.

17. Solitary Man, Anchor Bay Films, $426,927, 107 locations, $3,990 average, $1,424,993, five weeks.

18. Date Night, 20th Century Fox, $360,904, 345 locations, $1,046 average, $96,883,257, 11 weeks.

19. Winter’s Bone, Roadside Attractions, $351,316, 39 locations, $9,008 average, $474,328, two weeks.

20. The Secret in Their Eyes, Columbia Pictures Classics, $282,288, 166 locations, $1,701 average, $4,942,582, 10 weeks.