'2012' Grips World Weekend B-O with US$225mil

NOV 9, 2009 - It comes as no surprise that disaster flick 2012 rocked the international box-office last weekend, taking an estimated US$225 million (RM759 million). The apocalyptic movie (pictured right) registered the biggest opening for a non-franchise movie, Columbia Pictures reported.

Moviegoers in the United States and Canada chipped in US$65 million while the foreign tally of US$160 million came from 105 countries, led by France with US$17.2 million, Russia with US$15.3 million and Emmerich’s native Germany with $12.4 million. It opens in Japan next weekend. The North American opening of US$65 million is the biggest since Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen launched with US$109 million in June.

2012, which cost about US$200 million to make, uses the Mayan calendar and other end-of-days prophecies to depict the end-of-the-world during a solar meltdown.

Here is the rest of the Top 5 US B-O estimate grosses for Nov 12-15, 2009 weekend, in terms of rank, Movie name (studio), Weekend takings in USD, (Cumulative gross, USD) and week on chart, courtesy of Boxofficemojo.

1. 2012 (Sony/Columbia) $65.0 million ($65.0 million) 1

2. A Christmas Carol (Buena Vista) $22.3 million ($63.3 million) 2

3. The Men Who Stare at Goats (Overture Films) $6.2 million ($23.4 million) 2

4. Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' (Lionsgate) $6.1 million ($8.9 million) 2

5. This Is It (Sony/Columbia) $5.1 million ($68.2 million) 3