Pamela McClintock of THR:
Summit Entertainment's The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 1 had the sharpest bite at the Thanksgiving box office, winning the extended holiday with $62.3 million and pushing its worldwide cume to nearly $500 million.
Breaking Dawn's domestic cume through Sunday is an estimated $221.3 million, while it earned another $71.5 million at the international box office this weekend for a foreign cume of $268 million and worldwide total of $489.3 million. Domestically, the film continues to pace slightly behind The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which had earned $230 million at the same point.
Disney also scored a notable Thanksgiving victory with The Muppets. The family film, produced for a modest $45 million, beat a number of competitors to gross $42 million for the Wednesday-Sunday stretch, good enough to restore luster to the iconic brand, which has been off the bigscreen for more than a decade.
However, the holiday box office was still down 12 percent from Thanksgiving 2010, when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 grossed $75 million and Disney's Tangled opened to $68.7 million over the five-day holiday.
Part of the reason for the dip could be a glut of family friendly titles, which fragments the audience. Opening opposite The Muppets were Sony and Aardman's Arthur Christmas and Martin Scorsese's Hugo.
Produced by Sony and Aardman Entertainment, Arthur Christmas opened to $17 million, not enough to topple Warner Bros. holdover Happy Feet Two, which came in No. 3 and grossed $18.4 million. Generally speaking, Happy Feet Two has been a disappointment, and it's 10-day domestic cume of $43.8 million is not much more than the first Happy Feet grossed in its first weekend.
Sony--and even other studio rivals--believe Arthur Christmas will have strong legs because of its holiday theme. And like Muppets and Hugo, Arthur Christmas received glowing reviews. Audiences followed in suit, bestowing Muppets with an A CinemaScore and Arthur Christmas with an A-.
Hugo--the filmmaker's first foray into the 3D family market--didn't receive a CinemaScore since it opened on only 1,277 screens, grossinng a better-than-expected $15.4 million. Paramount decided to roll the film out slowly, hoping to ride the wave of awards attention and good word of mouth. The film is playing older than a usual family movie, and to more sophisticated audiences. To boot, 75 percent of the earnings came from 3D screens.
Still, Hugo could be problematic for Graham King's GK Films, since its budget was in the $150 million range. GK Films fully financed the film.
Another Thanksgiving player turned out to be Cameron Crowe's Matt Damon-Scarlett Johansson Christmas film We Bought a Zoo, which 20th Century Fox snuck on Saturday in more than 800 theaters across the country. Fox is reporting sell-out shows on both coasts and in America's heartland.
At the specialty box office, a trio of awards contenders saw strong numbers. The black-and-white, silent film The Artist scored one of the top openings of the year for a limited release, grossing $210,414 from four theaters in New York and Los Angeles for a location average of $52,604--the third best average of 2011.
The Weinstein Co. also began rolling out Michelle Williams starrer My Week with Marilyn, which grossed a pleasing $2.1 million.
Alexander Payne's George Clooney starrer The Descendants made a major push over the holiday, expanding to 433 theaters and grossing $9.2 million for a stellar cume of $10.7 million. The Fox Searchlight film came in No. 10.
Thanksgiving Weekend Box Office 5 Day Totals Nov. 23-Nov. 27
1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 1 (2), Summit/4,066, $62.3 million, $221.3
2. The Muppets (1), Disney/3,440, $42 million
3. Happy Feet Two (2), Warner Bros./3,611, $18.4 million, $43.8 million
4. Arthur Christmas (1), Sony/3,376, $17 million
5. Hugo (1), Paramount/1,277, $15.4 million
6. Jack and Jill (3), Sony/3,029, $14.1 million, $57.4 million
7. Immortals (3), Relativity Media/2,677, $12.5 million, $68.6 million
8. Puss in Boots (5), Paramount/DreamWorks Animation/3,005, $10.4 million, $135.4 million
9. Tower Heist (4), Universal/2,474, $10.2 million, $65.4 million
10. The Descendants (2), Fox Searchlight/433, $9.2 million, $10.7 million
Next: Limited engagements invade the cineplex as Steve McQueen's NC-17 rated Shame puts sex addiction front and center for Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan and James Badge Dale; while Twilight's Kellan Lutz has a A Warrior's Heart as he reunites with Ashley Greene
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