(Source: www.boxofficemojo.com)
Animated movies made some surprising moves last weekend: a CG contender stayed a contender while a 13-year-old stop-motion flick reaffirmed its classic status.
Sony's Open Season demonstrated some staying power as it held onto the #4 spot on the Top 10 for the second week in a row. The CG-animated film added another $8,162,729 to its take, totalling $69,765,034 over 4 weeks. It's not yet a profitable movie (the flick cost the studio $85 million), but it's certainly getting there.
This is good news for Sony Pictures Animation which saw its previous animated film, Monster House, underwhelm at the box office. This is bad news for animation fans, considering that Open Season is yet another in a long line of CG-animated "wise-cracking animals" flicks. Despite box office stinkers like The Wild and The Ant Bully, studios still see the profit in putting wise-acre dialogue in CG-animated animals' mouths.
The big news for animation fans, however, was the 3-D re-release of Tim Burton's classic The Nightmare Before Christmas. It snagged 12th place overall, making $3,277,004. This doesn't seem like much until you realize that Nightmare opened in a mere 168 theatres. In contrast, the live-action The Guardian (which took #11) played in 2,558 theatres while the Jessica Simpson film Employee of the Month (#13) stank up 2,141 screens. The lesson here, kids: smart-ass animals do not an animated classic make.
Here's ye olde compleat list:
4) Open Season (Sony): $8,162,729 ($69,765,034 over 4 weeks)
12) Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-D (Buena Vista): $3,277,004 (NEW)
30) Barnyard: The Original Party Animals (Paramount): $207,567 ($72,394,888 over 12 weeks)
31) Monster House (Sony): $202,477 ($73,661,010 over 14 weeks)
37) Everyone's Hero (Fox): $121,224 ($14,283,229 over 6 weeks)
39) The Ant Bully (W.B.): $116,100 ($27,918,618 over 13 weeks)
