Madagascar 3 Beats Prometheus at US B-O

JUNE 11, 2012 - What looked like a tight race last Friday turned out to not really be much of a competition. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted handily defeated Prometheus over the three-day weekend. That being said, even if it didn't quite reach the astronomical levels some had been expecting, director Ridley Scott's return to sci-fi still had one of the best second place debuts in history. The Top 12 earned an estimated US$172 million this weekend, which is up 30 percent from the same frame last year when Super 8 and Judy Moody both underperformed.

Madagascar 3 debuted to a strong US$60.35 million at 4,258 locations, which is the fourth-highest opening of the year and the seventh-highest ever in June. It was a tad lower than Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa's US$63.1 million, but was about in line with the first Madagascar's US$61 million four-day Memorial weekend debut. It's also right in line with DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda, which earned US$60.2 million at about the same time in 2008. 

Here are the Top 5 North American B-O studio estimates for June 8-10, 2012 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)

1. (-) Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (P/DW) $60.3 million ($60.3 million) 1

2. (-) Prometheus (Fox) $50.0 million ($50.0 million) 1

3. (1) Snow White and the Huntsman (Uni.) $23.0 million ($98.5 million) 2

4. (2) MIB 3 (Sony) $13.5 million ($135.5 million) 3

5. (3) Marvel's The Avengers (BV) $10.8 million ($571.8 million) 6