Weekend Box Office: Brave Hits Bullseye, Abraham Lincoln Gets Staked

By Chris Kavan - 06/24/12 at 11:11 PM CT

Once again the weekend was dominate by an animated film, and was there any doubt that Pixar's Brave would wind up the winner?

Although Brave has a somewhat lower critical score than most Pixar films, it didn't stop audiences from tuning in over the weekend. Taking in an estimated $66.7 million, Brave is right in line with recent Pixar films including Cars 2 ($66.1 million), Wall-E ($63 million) and Up ($68.1 million). The mostly family audience also awarded it a strong A cinemascore, meaning it should hold up well in the coming weeks - especially with not direct family films in direct competition until Ice Age: Continental Drift drops July 13.

Brave was the second-highest June opening of any animated film save for Toy Story 3's massive $103 million (still a Pixar best) in 2010. Despite featuring a female lead, Brave's female audience only was a slight lead (57%) and skewed younger (55% under 25). Every Pixar film except Cars 2 has broken the $200 million mark. The coming weeks will determine where Brave will end up, but chances are, it should join that club.

Also making its debut was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. The third place $16.5 million showing was about in line with expectations - better than Rock of Ages and That's My Boy from last week, and certainly better than the Jonah Hex style bomb it was being compared to early on. It's nowhere in line with Timur Bekmambetov’s Wanted opening of $50.9 million, and the dismal C+ probably means it won't stick around long. In fact, given the 39% approval rating and audience disappointment, it will be lucky to reach what Wanted made in its opening weekend. Considering how much the studio optioned the book for, they better hope it does well enough overseas to make up for it's tepid American response.

Also opening this week - though not nearly in as many theaters, was the Steve Carell, Keira Knightley apocalyptic romantic comedy Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. Not many people decided to seek this one out, as it barely manged to crack the top 10 with just $3.8 million. The film already sounded like it would have limited appeal, and the number reflect that sentiment.

Madagascar 3 dropped to second in the face of Pixar's Brave, far behind with $20.2 million, though the film did cross the $150 million mark and now stands at $157.5 million. It took a 40.7% drop from last week.

Prometheus managed to cross the $100 million with a fourth place $10 million showing, bumping its total to $108.5 million. Rounding out the top five, it's going to be neck-and-neck between Rock of Ages and Snow White and the Huntsman, both with right around $8 million. Rock of Ages should wind up with $28.7 million, white Snow White should be sitting pretty with $137 million.

Outside of the top 10, Woody Allen scored another huge debut with To Rome in Love, opening in just five theaters, taking in the second-best per-theater average of the year (behind Moonrise Kingdom) $75,800 and also Allen's second best opening per-theater (behind Midnight in Paris). While the word of mouth isn't quite as strong as Paris, either, this still looks to be another indie hit from the director.

Next week Magic Mike with give women some eye candy at the box office for a change, Ted gives family guy creator Seth MacFarlane his big screen debut and Tyler Perry gives us Madea's Witness Protection. We'll see how the three fare against Pixar's latest offering.