Dolphin Tale Jumps to Top Weekend Spot

OCT 3, 2011 - On strong word-of-mouth, Dolphin Tale managed to leap over Moneyball and The Lion King 3D to take first place on its second weekend in North America. 50/50 faltered but was tops among newcomers, though faith-based movie Courageous had the most impressive showing at far fewer locations.

Dream House disappointed in its debut at No. 6, while What's Your Number? tallied one of the worst numbers for a super-saturated (3,000+ theatres) release ever. Dream House scared up a meek estimated US$8.2 million. That's just a fraction of haunted house movies like The Skeleton Key (US$16.1 million) and The Amityville Horror (US$23.5 million), and it's even off a bit from Dark Water (US$9.9 million).

What's Your Number? wound up in 8th place with a terrible US$5.6 million. That's the fifth-worst debut ever for a movie in more than 3,000 theatere, and is just over one-third of the opening of star Anna Faris's House Bunny (US$14.5 million).

Here are the Top 5 North American B-O studio estimates for Sept 30-Oct 1, 2011 weekend, in terms of rank, (previous week ranking), Movie name (studio), Weekend takings in USD, (Cumulative gross, USD) and week on chart, courtesy of Boxofficemojo. (US$1=RM3)

1. Dolphin Tale (Warner Bros.) $14.3 million ($37.5 million) 2

2. Moneyball (Sony/Columbia) $12.5 million ($38.5 million) 2

3. The Lion King 3D (Buena Vista) $11.1 million ($79.7 million) 3

4. 50/50 (Summit) $8.9 million ($8.9 million) 1

5. Courageous (TriStar) $8.8 million ($8.8 million) 1