Moneyball fails to top box office for a second week thanks to Dolphin Tale
Sony's Moneyball has so far topped the charts for both weekends of its box office trial, but has fallen prey to family film staying power, this time to Warner Bros. Pictures' Dolphin Tale in its sophomore weekend run.
Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman and Harry Connick Jr.-powered Dolphin Tale grossed an estimated $14.2 million from 3,515 theaters, showing a mere 26% change in comparison to last weekend's debut gross of $19.15 million, and jumping up two rankings from a third place opening. Total domestic cume is now at over $37.5 million thanks to positive viewer word-of-mouth.
The critically acclaimed Bennett Miller baseball drama Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill turned in an estimated $12.5 million, also showing a minimal 36% decline when compared to weekend number one's $19.5 million, second-place debut weekend. Moneyball has coined over $38.4 million and looks to stick around a while.
Disney's Lion King still roars with $11.05 million pulled in from its third weekend trial in 3D, bringing its domestic total to over $79.65 million thus far.
Of the first-weekend openers, Summit Entertainment's 50/50 dramedy starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen, did decent money with $8.84 million, but could swap places with fifth-placed faith-based flick Courageous from Sony. The latter, helmed and starring Alex Kendrick, grossed $8.8 million from 1,161 theaters, and managed the best per-theater average of the top ten films with around $7,580.
Other wide openers Dream House, starring Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Naomi Watts and Fox's Anna Faris starrer What's Your Number ended in 6th place with $8.2 million and eighth place with $5.6 million respectively.
The year-to-date revenue is at $7.98 billion vs. 2010's $8.26 billion, down 3.39%. Attendance is now down by 5.43%.
No indie films made any significant per-theater impression.