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SATURDAY PM/SUNDAY AM UPDATE: Sources have given me these Top 10 results with Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday grosses for North America as well as estimated 3-day weekend, 5-day holiday, and cume numbers. The 
Thanksgiving break is adding up to an overall $255 million moviegoing weekend, the 2nd biggest Thanksgiving ever. (And only -6% down from last year’s record when Twilight Saga: New Moon, The Blind Side, and 2012 led the way.) Out of the gate Wednesday, four movies released — Disney’s Rapunzel retelling toon Tangled 3D, Sony/Screen Gems’ garish musical Burlesque, Fox’s R-rated adult dramedy Love And Other Drugs, and CBS Films’ actioner on the cheap Faster. But none were able to unseat holdover Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 1 from atop the box office. All three non-family openers started the holiday weekend very slow while Harry Potter and Tangled and DreamWorks Animation holdover Megamind 3D galloped into the lead. After Friday, the race was easily won by HP7A with Tangled surprisingly close behind. Fox’s Unstoppable showed strength three weeks in release after a mediocre start. The rest of the weekend was a humilitainment contest to see which newcomer faded fastest:
1. Harry Potter/Deathly Hallows, Pt 1 (Warner Bros) Week 2 [4,125 Runs]
Wednesday $14.4M, Thursday $11.5M, Friday $20.7M, Saturday $18.7M
3-Day Weekend $50.3M, 5-Day Holiday $78M, Cume $220M
This 7th Harry Potter in the franchise is the best performer on the single best moviegoing day of the year. The big Friday-to-Friday drop is due only to last week’s enormous midnight screenings number that was loaded into the whopping $125.1M opening weekend.
2. Tangled 3D (Disney) NEW [3,603 Runs]
Wednesday $11.8M, Thursday $8.1M, Friday $19.7M, Saturday $18.7M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $49.1M, 5-Day Holiday $69M
According to some media, this 50th animated Disney film is the kind of movie that the new regime doesn’t want to make anymore. Which is why a Magic Kingdom denizen warned me in advance “not to buy into that. The Los Angeles Times is beyond idiotic in its death toll on animation as you well know. Though this is not Toy Story and should not be compared to that.” Maybe so, but Tangled really overperformed by doubling Hollywood’s expectations for the 2nd best Thanksgiving weekend opener ever (not adjusted for higher 3D ticket prices). Add the international weekend tally of $13.8M, and that’s a global cume after 5 days of $82.8M. Then again, Disney has done well on previous Thanksgiving weekends (Enchanted, 101 Dalmations, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story), boasting five of the last top six #1 movies during this time slot. This renamed Rapunzel also benefitted most from the Warner Bros decision not to release HP/Deathly Hallows in 3D, allowing Tangled more breathing room on its 2,413 3D screens. And though I and many others took early swipes at new marketing czarina MT Carney, she ensured this “A+” CinemaScore toon wasn’t dismissed as just another Disney fairy tale princess story, taking pains to attract boys by emphasizing the toon’s male hero and making some surprising TV ads aimed at parents. (I especially liked the clever hair growth spot during a recent Saturday Night Live.) Mandy Moore voiced/performed all the songs opposite Zachary Levi and both promoted the heck out of the movie. This was the largest U.S. word-of-mouth screening program for a Disney animated film ever — 250 screenings in 50 U.S. markets over 5 weeks – and the first global junket held at Disneyland. Tangled is already positively impacting other lines of business. Rapunzel and Flynn Rider also made appearances at 17 NBA games, 4 NHL games, 4 NFL games, 1 NCAA football game, etc. Most important to the Disney money machine is that Tangled merchandise is selling very well in advance of the holiday season for the corporation’s Consumer Products division.
3. Megamind 3D (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount) Week 4 [3,401 Runs]
Wednesday $2.6M, Thursday $2M, Friday $5.3M, Saturday $4.9M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $12.8M, 5-Day Holiday $17.5M, Cume $130.4M
4. Burlesque (Screen Gems/Sony) NEW [3,037 Runs]
Wednesday $2.4M, Thursday $2.4M, Friday $4.5M, Saturday $4.6M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $11.8M, 5-Day Holiday $17.2M
Why anybody bothered to make Burlesque or give it such a wide release might be a mystery. Until it’s revealed that Screen Gems chief Clint Culpepper greenlighted his boyfriend’s $55+ million passion project. (Their on-set strife over budget, schedule, and creative decisions resulted in the most expensive film in Screen Gems history, and word is they’re now broken up after 20 years. Awkward.) But novice director Steven Antin deserves at least some credit for bringing back Cher to the big screen: they both dated David Geffen, and the mogul urged Cher to take the role. She hasn’t had a major film since 1999′s Tea With Mussolini and is a bonafide national treasure. But am I the only one who can’t stand Christina Aguilera’s hammy vocal stylings or Steven’s sister Robin Antin “Pussycat Dolls” slutty dance gyrations? No matter. The studio claims this is an event musical made “for women young and old and it offers pure moviegoing fun” for the holidays. Too bad no one showed up in theaters even if the soundtrack opened to #1 on iTunes and is currently #11 overall. Screen Gems did its best to market this clunker by arranging for live performances with Christina on the Dancing With The Stars season finale as well as on the American Music Awards. And for Cher to do her first major interviews in 10 years and have her hand and feet immortalized in cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. The studio also did grassroots marketing in the gay community and sponsored pride parades in LA, NY, and San Francisco, as well as Burlesque-themed nights and “Cher-aoke” in gay bars across the country.
5. Unstoppable (Fox) Week 3 [3,183 Runs]
Wednesday $1.9M, Thursday $2.5M, Friday $4.5M, Saturday $4.7M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $11.7M, 5-Day Holiday $16M, Cume $60.7M
At first, Fox film mogul Tom Rothman despaired that yet another of his studio’s movies was struggling this terrible year. But now, perhaps, he can stop bitching and moaning and burying his face in his hands. Though slow off the mark, this old-fashioned Tony Scott-directed thriller derided as “Speed-on-a-train” is testament to the importance of word of mouth and Denzel Washington’s impressive staying power as a box office star. Its opening weekend “A-” CinemaScore helps as well as solidly above-average exit polls across all demographics to give 20th Century Fox reason to still hope for a long run and decent multiple off of a meager $23.5M opening. Audiences have been very balanced by gender and are skewing older.
6. Love And Other Drugs (Fox) NEW [2,455 Runs]
Wednesday $2.1M, Thursday $1.9M, Friday $3.8M, Saturday $3.8M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $9.8M, 5-Day Holiday $14.5M
It’s been decades since Ed Zwick directed a romantic comedy-drama, and that was the now classic About Last Night based on the David Mamet play Sexual Perversity In Chicago. So it’s a shame that a quality adult pic like Love And Other Drugs is having difficulty meeting even modest mid-teens expectations for the 5-day holiday. Based on the non-fiction title Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman written by Jamie Reidy, this pic is underperforming even with the very appealing stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway. (But clearly, after Zodiak and Prince Of Persia, Jake can’t carry a major studio picture.) Though tracking best with women over 25, one roadblock could be its R rating because of a topless actress and a bottomless actor. Though reviewers were only lukewarm about the pic, Hathaway and Gyllenhaal should garner Golden Globe heat in the comedy/musical category (despite some killer dramatic scenes) because those Hollywood Foreign Press Association hacks care mostly about star wattage. But that will come too late to help box office.
7. Faster (CBS Films/Sony) NEW [2,454 Runs]
Wednesday $1.6M, Thursday $1.9M, Friday $3.2M, Saturday $3.4M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $8.7M, 5-Day Holiday $12.2M
Newcomer CBS Films struck out with its first two modestly budgeted films. Now its actioner costing $24 million split with Sony and featuring Dwayne Johnson is another swing and miss at bat after the studio hoped for $15+M. At least the movie division didn’t spend big marketing dollars because Faster was so targeted to the men who make up the CBS TV audience and promoted on shows like the rebooted Hawaii Five-O. Then there are the 29 TV stations, 2nd largest radio outfit, and largest billboard company to exploit as well. So shouldn’t this film have hit it out of the ballpark? ”The biggest problem, honestly, is that The Rock lost his credibility with action fans when he did those family films,” an insider emails me. “It’s hard to be a badass when you’ve put on a tutu in The Tooth Fairy.” Good thing Les Moonves has vowed to be patient.
8. Due Date (Warner Bros) Week 4 [2,455 Runs]
Wednesday $1.3M, Thursday $1.7M, Friday $2.8M, Saturday $2.9M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $7.3M, 5-Day Holiday $10.5M, Cume $85M
9. The Next Three Days (Lionsgate) Week 2 [2,564 Runs]
Wednesday $760K, Thursday $1M, Friday $1.8M, Saturday $2M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $4.8M, 5-Day Holiday $6.5M, Cume $14.5M
10. Morning Glory (Paramount) Week 3 [2,441 Runs]
Wednesday $610K, Thursday $840K, Friday $1.6M, Saturday $1.5M
Estimated 3-Day Weekend $4M, 5-Day Holiday $4.5M, Cume $26.4M
WEDNESDAY 8:45 PM, 2ND UPDATE: Disney sources now tell me that Tangled opened with $10M-$11M today and the studio is still looking for a high $60sM Thanksgiving 5-day holiday weekend.
WEDNESDAY 5 PM UPDATE: Disney sources are now predicting that Tangled looks like it will end up in the high $60sM for this 5-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend. “But we’ll know more later this evening as we see how late in the night the film plays. I hope you need a new headline…”
WEDNESDAY 2:45 PM: Rival studios just told me that Walt Disney Studios’ animated Tangled is opening today “much bigger than expected” than Hollywood’s 5-day estimates of $35M to $40M. One source says it’s double but that may be exaggerated. Yet even cautious Disney is telling me they’re “seeing an uptick in our expectations”. Interesting because the Thanksgiving holiday weekend estimate for blockbuster holdover Harry Potter And the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 is $90M. Clearly the new Disney regime did a great marketing job moving the Rapunzel fairy tale out of its Little Misses & Moms niche and into a wider demographic arena by emphasizing its comedic flair. Stay tuned tonight to see if I can legitimately use my planned-in-advance headline: “Hair No Match For Harry”. I’ll have a full box office report and analysis later on.
For more estimates listed by title, see box office results here...Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Hair no match for Harry:
Pretty funny Nikki.
America is not stupid. New travels fast over the web.
America knows that Gyllenhaal is a terrible, terrible actor.
Hathaway is extraordinary, but her real-life personality is a turn-off. All of interviews, she’s always being so theatrical. It’s fake.
Moreover, the movie isn’t good, so they trumped up the sex. Yes, Gyllenhaal is great-looking. But teenage girls watch porn. It’s gone mainstream. Seeing his bits, all you’re going to do is think, Oh, it’s small. Hathaway is pretty, but we see 5,000,000 naked girls on the Internet every minute.
People will go see a movie if the quality is there. It’s that simple.
“Gyllenhaal is a terrible, terrible actor.” He’s been nominated for an Academy Award (and not even for his best performance — that was Donnie Darko). How many Oscars have you been nominated for?
The problem with this film is not Jake’s performance, or the performance of his bits, or the plethora of internet pornography. It’s actually timing (of the release) and more seriously, editing.
There is a fine picture buried somewhere in “Love & Other Drugs.” But due to a somewhat liberal cut of the film, we end up with a bad (though not terrible) composition of what was actually captured.
And Anne Hathaway is not a fake (wtf!).
Where do these people come from, really?
You’re an idiot, and a Yes Man, who gets 10% of his money.
It’s widely known in Hollywood that Jake Gyllenhaal can’t act.
When he was nominated for that award for Brokeback, his tour-de-force clip was when he gets pissed at Enis Del Mar.
Watch it. He’s just a kid playing dress up who uses his same, every day voice, while Ledger transformed. He acts him off the screen.
He has no charisma, no presence, just a nice guy with a nice face. If his parents weren’t in the business, he’d be middle management in the corporate world, and that’s it.
Lots of people have WON Oscars, and they’re not great actors either.
And you’re someone tired of losing roles to him. Pwn!
“The problem with this film is not Jake’s performance, or the performance of his bits, or the plethora of internet pornography. It’s actually timing (of the release) and more seriously, editing.”
Yes, because in 2 years, or 20 years, people point to a given film and say, Oh, the problem with the film was the timing of its release.
No, the problem with the film was that it wasn’t any good.
Read the reviews. It’s 5 movies in one, none of which are good.
Yeah! Hope this is true. It’s about time Disney got back to doing what it *used* to do best: make its own original enchanting versions of beloved fairy tales. Next it needs to make a feature film about its own original characters, like Mickey Mouse and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Those critters rock, and they’re authentic Disney. Disney don’t need no stinkin’ Muppets!
Everybody needs Muppets.
Just came from “Tangled.” An adorable family movie. The lantern scene is one of the great animated sequences of all-time.
I agree- the lantern scene is amazing
There was a long line at the El Capitan Theatre at 5:30 a.m. for the first screening today.
Love early box office but isn’t Thanksigivng notoriously volatile and difficult to predict?
Agreed. I enjoy reading early coverage as much as the next ghoul but I think it’s early in a five day weekend to start declaring winners and losers.
It’s a G-Rated animated Disney flick, wa’d ya expect? If it beats Harry Potter, I’m good with that……I hope it beats Harry Potter.
….it is rated PG….and it is a damned good film
I’d love to see that happen too, but the Potter hype-machine is, as usual, in top gear. Harry has been beaten before: the last Potter flick lost its second weekend to “G-Force” (a movie about singing dancing guinea pigs). But that was in summertime. Thanksgiving should provide Harry with a holiday “cushion”, minimizing the franchise’s typical 60% 2nd-weekend-plunge. Which was, of course, the studio’s plan when it arranged that timeslot.
It’s a shame really. While I’ve not yet seen “Tangled”, it sounds like the perfect holiday family film — much more appropriate for the little ones than gloomy doomy Harry. But brand-name recognition and mega-hype are very hard to overcome.
why would it be a shame if potter beats tangled? who cares? people wanna see what they wanna see. sorry it doesnt fit into what your view of “the holidays” should mean.
The movie is fantastic and deserves all of the praise and box-office return it is sure to get. Another big win for the Dick Cook/Oren Aviv regime that for whatever reason is no longer there.
Truth. Also, is this going to be like HP7 where it early projections start @150+ then go to 145, then 140 then 135 before landing @$125?
The same “regime” that green lit The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Prince of Persia and G-Force…
Tangled is one of the freshest and most fun animated film I’ve seen in years. Not surprising.
Disney 180 to be expected soon. “Quick! More Princess movies!”
Historically, the Disney animation eras are almost always jump-started by a new princess movie – “Snow White” in 1937, “Cinderella” in 1950 (after all those 40s package films), “Little Mermaid” in 1989, and now “Princess and the Frog” and “Tangled.” However, statistically most of their animated features haven’t been fairy-tale based. It’s just that the princess films tend to get the most press.
Now can we get “The Snow Queen” back into production please?
wish they would do the Snow Queen – it could be a great animated film
Princess and the frog bombed. It didn’t jumbo start anything. That’s why try changed the title to Tangled to get away from the princessy stuff.
Tangled rocked though.
How about “Harry no match for Hair”?
That was my take, too. Go Disney!
LOL.
Tangled is rated PG
35 – 40M for *5* days for this 3d feature? This must be a typo as that figure sounds more reasonable for a 3-day-weekend.
That’s nice to hear! Tangled was much better than I expected it to be….
Hard to believe anyone took the estimate of $35-$40 million seriously in the first place! Decent weather in most of the biggest metro areas will help boost the 5-day tally as high as $75 million. The film cost more than $150 million so it needs to do better than the Princess and the Frog did last year.
“Disney got back to doing what it *used* to do best…fairy tales.”
B.S.
Pinocchio? Bambi? Dumbo? Fantasia? 101 Dalmations? Lion King? Rescuers? Robin hood? Winnie the Pooh? Jungle Book?
MOST of Disney’s features, and most of their most SUCCESSful ones were not “fairy tales.”‘ Stop looking backwards.
Pinocchio is considered a fairy tale (Blue Fairy, get it?). And yeah, the rest aren’t, but they’re still Disney versions of classic stories, which is what Disney used to do best, and are a hell of a lot more appropriate subject matter for Disney films than the Hulk or Kermit the freaking frog. It’s about time Disney stopped buying cast-off characters and started creating again. And what’s wrong with “looking backwards”? What is Tangled but a Disney Princess movie, and happily it looks like it’s going to be a hit. Maybe its success will provide the impetus for Disney brass to let Disney be Disney again, and stop apologizing for the company legacy, like Lasseter did in that recent newspaper article (No more princess movies, huh? Stuff it, LA Times!)
Pinocchio is a fairy tale *cough* Blue Fairy *cough*
But yeah, you’re right, Disney built its rep on more than fairy tales. Still, what’s wrong with “looking backwards”? Diz ought to do that more often instead of trying to imitate Dreamworks.
And wasn’t Disney “looking backwards” when it greenlit Tangled, another fairy tale? And it looks like this one is working out for them. $68 million aint’ chicken (little) feed.
“Fantasia” had fairies too, and about half the Greek pantheon, a sorcerer, and whatever you want to call “Night no Bald Mountain.”
And fairy tales are nothing to sneeze at. Stuff like “Hansel and Gretel” and “The Red Shoes” always struck me as pretty dark and disturbing. Disney usually does some serious sugarcoating to get their adaptations onscreen.
Strong WOM will drive weekend on this pic. It’s crowd pleasing for all quadrants and a lot of fun. Laughs, romance, action…it’s all there. Good stuff from the mouse house.
What a great flick. The house was 80% capacity. And I’m in the middle of nowhere.
I hate to see any credit go to Disney’s awful, awful marketing for this film. Never before have I seen so many of a film’s creative staff hit the web to beg people to ignore the film’s trailers and commercials like I have with Tangled/Rapunzel.
My daughters were screaming for this movie for the last two months. I would say that Disney marketing nailed it. What did the people you are talking about want? Should Disney have aired ads on espn? Should they have cut a trailer that looked like an action film or maybe one that looked like a drama? Hard to see what the complaint is here. They seem to have hit the demographic for the film square on the nose. Maybe that’s why the creative staff makes the films and the marketing staff sells it.
can you cite one example of the “film’s creative staff hitting the web to beg people to ignore the film’s trailers and commercials”? or are you just a blithering idiot?
This comment makes no sense. It is not difficult to sell a Disney princess tale to little girls and moms, nut.
Where Disney most likely tripped up, and likely always will, is marketing this to dads and sons. THAT’S where the real creativity comes in – and not many studios can say that that is one of their strengths unfortunately.
Tangled cost between $180 – 260 depending on if you include development. Disney spent in excess of $100 on domestic marketing alone. They have a long, long way before they reach profit.
Tangled is the Fall’s Airbender.
Toys, T-shirts, lunch pails … they can market the crap out of this thing, and release it on DVD over and over again. I think it looks dreadful, but there is much greater opportunity to milk it than there is with Airbender.
I thought it looked dreadful too, but went today with my kids, cousins and in-laws and it was TERRIFIC. Something for everyone. A Disney classic…in computer generated animation nonetheless. Opens a whole new book for Disney. We will go see again.
There are so many people saying Tangled is good that it makes me want to see it. I will probably at least give it a rental.
Coming soon to Disney Land and Disney World.
And to Broadway, mark my words…
Endless straight to DVD sequels, mark my words
Unlike Airbender, this one will have good WOM. That, and animation does very well overseas. This one should be very profitable for Disney.
Disney’s animated features typically have a very long tail – they continue to earn money for *decades* after they were released. Most of the classic Disney features that people watch generation after generation (Pinocchio, Fantasia, Sleeping Beauty) all failed to make a profit when first released, yet went on to make the company enormous piles of money in the long term.
Walt Disney may have had some fascist leanings, but he was also a frikkin’ genius.
How dare you offend Tangled by putting in that same sentence with that M. Night atrocity?
Not surprised. “Tangled” looks like an entertaining flick, and the latest Harry Potter movie is for older audiences/people that have grown up with the books & films.
The American trailer for this movie was terrible, which is sad because I was hoping for so much more. Recently, a friend told me about the Japanese trailer which as it turns out was excellent in my opinion. It seems to me like somebody missed the target on the America version, but it’s not to late to fix. Somebody needs get busy!
Does anyone here know what wrong with The Frog Princess? That one seemed as if it were
half a good movie and half a messed up rough cut.
That’s definitely subjective. My mother and I thought FP was VERY cool.
Oren Aviv had absolutely nothing to do with tangled (he was only in charge of live action) and Dick had next to nothing to do with it. Project had been in development for more than a decade and didn’t get off the ground until Lasseter and Catmull came to the studio.
I saw Tangled in 3D at midnight with my three daughters (all grown up) and my husband. We absolutely loved the movie. The lantern scene is spectacular. The music is the best Disney has done in a long time, and Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore were terrific. I will be going again.
Disney got this one right, and in my opinion, ranks right up there with the Disney classics.