Weekend Box-Office: June 1-3, 2012

Snow White is the fairest!

Sometimes fairy tales do come true, so if Kristen Stewart wished for a success beyond the TWILIGHT series, it seems she got it with SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN.

Commercial director Rupert Sanders’ grim vision of the Grimm story topped the chart with $56.3 million, squeezing just a bit past last week’s winner MEN IN BLACK III ($55M over the three-day period), but scoring significantly more than its expected fairy tale adversary MIRROR MIRROR made back in March (just $18.1M on opening weekend, and $62.5M total).

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (aka SWATH or SNOW WHITE AND THORHUNTSMAN) opened in overseas territories with an additional $39.3 million, but it’s a long and dark and winding path back to its $172M budget, and the average audience response (‘B’ CinemaScore) may not help word-of-mouth business. While it remains to be seen if K-Stew will don the armor and rejoin her diminutive comrades and beefy co-star for more epic fantasy, SWATH’s initial performance was still superior to this summer’s other pricey fare (compare it to BATTLESHIP’s $25M and DARK SHADOWS’ $28M openings).

MEN IN BLACK III dropped less than half of last week’s business and gathered another $29.3M, traveling to $112.3M in ten days. But keep in mind that those well-tailored agents are protecting the entire Earth, and global crowds have shown their appreciation to the amount of $275 million. So the perceived underperformance in North America may not mean too much when the worldwide total (now at $387M) inevitably surpasses MIB II’s $441M total from a decade ago.

As for THE AVENGERS, the Marvel gang is somehow still finding records to smash. Even before this weekend’s $20.2M take, the movie ended up accounting for more than half of May’s domestic box office business all by itself (previous single-month record-holder was SPIDER-MAN with 37%). It also snapped the magic wand of HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS Pt. 2 to become #3 on the chart for all-time worldwide totals with $1,355,000,000.  Probably end up giving a handsome record-busting boost to Blu-Ray sales in a few months as well. Stay tuned, true believers!

Everything outside the Top 3 was just a skirmish, with nobody winning more than $5M. So far, BATTLESHIP has made even less (during the same span of time) in the US than star Taylor Kitsch’s other recent flop JOHN CARTER. Despite the actors’ ages, THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL has some strong legs, slowly climbing the chart on less than half the number of screens as its competitors. And the Mexican war drama FOR GREATER GLORY slipped over the border with $1.8M on 757 screens.

Outside the Top 10, THE HUNGER GAMES finally makes its departure after two-and-a-half-months of survival (it still hangs at $398.2M), while Wes Anderson’s MOONRISE KINGDOM continues to impress in limited release (a $53k per-screen average, several times that of anything on the list above it). The sequel PIRANHA 3DD got chewed up and spat out with just $179k total on 89 screens, glub glub.

Next weekend brings Ridley Scott’s anticipated sci-fi journey PROMETHEUS (which has already opened in some foreign territories to solid buzz), with a challenge from the CG beasts of MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE’S MOST WANTED. How much do you think PROMETHEUS will make on its opening weekend? VOTE HERE!