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The Grey Eats Competition
Revenues up 10 Percent Over Last January. By
Jarrod Sarafin
January 29, 2012
Liam Neeson's thriller The Grey opens in 1st Place
© Open Road Films
With 2011 ending as ugly as it did just a month ago, it seems almost fitting that the release that pushed the current box office to a 10 percent jump over the same time last year centered on the whole “survival of the fittest” premise. Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, eat your heart out. Open Road Films introduced the thriller The Grey into 3,185 theaters over the weekend---a break from the NFL playoffs---and found themselves in the top spot with a $20.0 million payday. Not only is the 3-day tally close to the $25 million production budget, it’s well above the $5 million that Open Road shelled out to distribute the Alaskan adventure. Ding, ding, ding, you just scored big on your release. What do you have to say?
"Liam Neeson is a true movie star, and our marketing department hit it out of the park," Open Road CEO Tom Ortenberg said.
He followed up with his beliefs that it probably would have scored bigger than Neeson’s previous two hits Taken ($24.7 mil) and Unknown ($21.9 mil) if it had didn’t carry the Rated-R tag. And he’s probably correct there. The opening weekend audience gave it a B- at CinemaScore, with males making up 60 percent of the attendance. Check out our interview with Liam Neeson and director Joe Carnahan here and here. Landing in the 2nd place spot is last weekend’s champion, Underworld Awakening. Sony Screen Gems’ fourth installment in the popular franchise scared up another $12.5 million on 3,078 venues across the nation. The second frame results has it at $45.1 million after 10 days of release, a franchise-best tally after the same amount of days with its predecessors. When including the $40 million it has gathered from its foreign market sales, the genre label out of Sony has already surpassed their $70 million pricetag on a global scale. At the moment, it has a worldwide cume of $85.1 million after its first two weekends.
Following in the 3rd place position is Lionsgate’s action comedy, One for the Money. Much like the silver slotted “Awakening,” the Katherine Heigle release came in above studio expectations by laughing up an estimated $11.7 million over its first three days of release. Based on Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum detective novels, the opening weekend audience was made of 79 percent female, 74 percent of which came in over the age of 25. For their parts, Lionsgate was pleased with taking the bronze over a film which could relate to franchise potential for the studio.
"We're very pleased," Lionsgate's David Spitzsaid. "These were definitely fans of the book."
Taking down the 4th place slot is last weekend’s runner-up, Red Tails. The Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox release shot up another $10.4 million in receipts over its sophomoric frame, increasing the domestic total to $33.7 million after 10 days of release. Executive producer George Lucas and director Anthony Hemingway managed to keep the aerial War World II pic’s budget to a pricetag of only $58 million.
And finishing in 5th place is the other new wide release of this weekend, Man on a Ledge. Summit Entertainment’s thriller opened in the spot with $8.3 million in estimated sales, averaging $2,769 per showing in each of their 2,998 venues. The Sam Worthington-Elizabeth Banks vehicle was produced on a $42 million budget.
Check out the rest of the top 10 down below.
| Rank | Movie | Weekend | Theaters | Average | Total | Budget |
| 1 | The Grey | $20.0 mil | 3,185 | $6,279 | $20.0 mil | $25 |
| 2 | Underworld Awakening | $12.5 mil | 3,078 | $4,061 | $45.1 mil | $70 |
| 3 | One For the Money | $11.7 mil | 2,737 | $4,293 | $11.7 mil | ---- |
| 4 | Red Tails | $10.4 mil | 2,573 | $4,042 | $33.7 mil | $58 |
| 5 | Man on a Ledge | $8.3 mil | 2,998 | $2,769 | $8.3 mil | $42 |
| 6 | Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close | $7.1 mil | 2,630 | $2,717 | $21.1 mil | ---- |
| 7 | The Descendants | $6.5 mil | 2,001 | $3,273 | $58.8 mil | ---- |
| 8 | Contraband | $6.5 mil | 2,650 | $2,453 | $56.4 mil | $25 |
| 9 | Beauty and the Beast 3D | $5.3 mil | 2,145 | $2,492 | $41.1 mil | ---- |
| 10 | Haywire | $4.0 mil | 2,441 | $1,639 | $15.2 mil | $23 |
Friday, February 3, 2012 Releases:
Wide
Chronicle (2,800+)
The Woman in Black (2,700+)
Big Miracle (1,900+)
Limited
The Innkeepers
Kill List
Perfect Sense
W.E.
Windfall
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the grey was a pretty good flick, i highly recommend it.