The weekend estimates are in and it looks like Christopher Nolan had no trouble conducting a little inception of his own, convincing the masses to check out his latest masterpiece. Inception pulled in $60.4 million easily securing the top spot, but that haul doesn’t even come close to Nolan’s last release, The Dark Knight, which earned an incredible $1558.4 million in its first weekend alone. However, Inception does bring Leonardo DiCaprio his biggest opening ever, blowing away Shutter Island’s $41.1 million first weekend total.
Despicable Me took a 42% hit dropping Gru and his minions to second place with $32.7 million, which brings its total to $118.4 million. Third place went to newcomer The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which proved to be a major disappointment. That one took in about $17.4 million over the weekend and a total of $24.5 million since its Wednesday opening. Having cost $150 million to make, this one will likely leave Dine in the red.
Spot four when to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, which added another $13.5 million to its bank account, boosting the grand total to $264.9 million, keep a step ahead of its big grossing predecessor. At this point in its run, New Moon had $255.4 million while Twilight had a mere $138.4 million. Toy Story 3 has the fifth spot, taking its total to $362.7 million thanks to another $11.7 million.
Grown Ups comes in sixth with $10 million and The Last Airbender right behind with another $7.45 million. Predators took a hard 72.5% hit in week two only making
$6.8 million. It’s a good thing the film only cost $40 million to make because with only $40.1 million in the domestic bank thus far and the interest dropping fast, it doesn’t look like it’ll remain on the charts much longer. Knight & Day is still holding on, adding another $3.7 million to its pot in week four while The Karate Kid is dumping in another $2.2 million in its sixth week in theaters.
Can Angelina Jolie steal the limelight from Leonardo DiCaprio? That’s the big question for next weekend. Salt arrives in theaters on Friday, but I’m betting strong word-of-mouth regarding Inception will be too powerful to topple. The only other big release for the weekend of the 23rd is Ramona and Beezus and while that’ll certainly catch the eye of Selena Gomez-loving tweens, I doubt it’ll manage to crack the top five.
By Perri Nemiroff (via Box Office Mojo)
