Weekend Estimates: Gatsby an Honorable Second
May 12, 2013
To no-one's great surprise, Iron Man 3 will top the box office chart again this weekend, with a very creditable projected $72.4 million, the 4th-biggest second weekend of all time. The more notable number this weekend, however, is the $51 million projected opening for The Great Gatsby. That's Baz Luhrman's best weekend by a huge margin -- in fact, only Moulin Rouge earned more than that in total domestically (and only by a small margin, with $57 million). It's also Leonardo DiCaprio's second-best weekend, behind Inception. In short, it's a great weekend for a movie that looked like a tough sell.
In contrast to the headliners, Peeples will post a disappointing $4.85 million or so, making it Tyler Perry's first real dud, although he only has a producer credit on this one.
Among returning films, Mud added more theaters and increased its weekend take to about $2.4 million (Roadside Attractions had yet to release their official estimate as we went to press). With a theater average of $2,810, this will probably be as far as its expansion will go, but it could stick around for a while.
In limited release, another Roadside Attractions film, Stories We Tell will bring in about $30,000 from two theaters for an impressive $15,000 average. The film was already released in Canada through Mongrel Media, and now has approximately $400,000 in North American theaters.
The other notable limited release to report so far is What Maisie Knew, which will bring in about $25,000 in three theaters for Millenium Films.
Bruce Nash bruce.nash@the-numbers.com
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, The Great Gatsby, Iron Man 3, Peeples, Mud, Stories We Tell, What Maisie Knew, Leonardo DiCaprio, Baz Luhrmann, Tyler Perry