Weekend Box Office: Oscar Films Debut, With ‘Princess And The Frog’ At The Top

If it wasn’t clear to anyone else, the holidays are prime time at the box office for family bonding/torture. As a result, three of the top five this weekend were family offerings, with Disney ruling the roost thanks to “The Princess And The Frog.” The latest in their line of princess films probably suffered from ruining the novelty of a black princess, by turning her into a frog for the majority of the film (progress!). Audiences didn’t necessarily rush out to see it, even after robust limited release numbers, but it’s #1 tally looks like it could hold steady for the next couple of weeks. Though “Alvin and the Chipmunks” looms, and there are far more bad parents than good — the last film opened to $44 million and had legs, so the sequel could be a monster if “Princess” is running on fumes and “The Blind Side” has taken a knee.

As for “The Blind Side,” it again posted a very small audience loss, a little more than 22%, pushing its total to $150 million. WB’s got smooth sailing ahead, with only “Sherlock Holmes” left, meaning that “Blind Side” will have the holiday screens necessary to vault over $200 million. Sociologically upsetting, but what are you going to do? Everything you need to know about “Blind Side” director John Lee Hancock came from Disney, who once evaluated “The Alamo” with, “Ron Howard’s vision for this movie is too ambitious and uncommercial! Let’s call John Lee Hancock.”

“Invictus” did about as well as a rugby movie with a Latin title could do, scoring at #3 largely due to the non-suspenseful ads and the “well duh” presence of Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. Tracking shows that senior citizens were the driving force behind the success of the movie, which might play moderately well next weekend too if the title pops up a lot during Tuesday’s Golden Globes announcements. “New Moon” dropped to #4 to land at $267 million ($300 is possible, but a stretch at this point) while the lowest top ten percentage drop was at #5 with “A Christmas Carol.” The film loses many IMAX screens to “Avatar” next week, but can the yuletide CGI-fest weather the competition simply by being one of the few non-secular titles out there? It stands at $124 million, which none expected after the soft opening, and with $111 in the coffers from international audiences, it certainly can’t be called a failure, but Disney probably won’t be sitting pretty until a $300 global number.

The top ten was relatively predictable, but there was movement outside of that group with a number of titles expanding in limited release. “Up In The Air” took in $34k per screen on 72 screens for a $2.5 million number, which will be followed with a much bigger post-Globes increase, we’ll bet. The Weinsteins will probably have to start choosing between “The Road” and “A Single Man,” with “Man” doing $24k per screen at nine locations, a $216k tally. “The Road,” now at 134 locations, pulled in $498k in its third week, which is still a pretty steady number for that sort of release. After what’s considered an awards-qualifying run, do they divert funds to expanding “Road” further or do they pump more money into “Single Man,” which has questionable commercial appeal? “Nine” is approaching, so the Weinsteins might want to act on that soon.

The weekend’s best per-screen average belonged to “The Lovely Bones,” which generated $39k per screen at three venues for a $116k showing. Tricky proposition, expanding this one, since the reviews were surprisingly unkind and this thing cost a boatload of money. If they start pushing the marketing hard, they could get audiences for those big expansions, but without critical support, the heat could die before its January wide release. Things could be worse — they could have released “Transylmania.” Last weekend the film registered the lowest opening for any film opening on 1000 screens, and this weekend, it lost plenty of theaters but still registered a per-screen average of $131. For a frame of comparison, “Inglourious Basterds,” which comes to DVD Tuesday, was seen by more people this weekend in less than half the theaters.

1. The Princess And The Frog – $25 million ($28 mil.)
2. Black Man Can’t Think For Himself, Says White Lady – $15.5 million ($150 mil.)
3. Invictus – $9.1 million
4. The Twilight Saga: New Moon – $8 million ($267 mil.)
5. A Christmas Carol – $6.9 million ($124 mil.)
6. Brothers – $5 million ($17 mil.)
7. 2012 – $4.4 million ($155 mil.)
8. Old Dogs – $4.4 million ($40 mil.)
9. Armored – $3.5 million ($12 mil)
10. Ninja Assassin – $2.7 million ($34 mil.)