Weekend Box Office: Dark Knight Still On Top; The Watch, Step Up Revolution Stumble

By Chris Kavan - 07/29/12 at 06:30 PM CT

A week after a deadly shooting in Aurora, Colorado shook the nation, it appears movie-goers were still hesitant about movie theaters. While the The Dark Knight Rises had no problem topping the box office, new entries failed to gain much traction with viewers.

Christopher Nolan's swan song in his Batman saga was number one with $64 million. The film was down 60% from its debut, right between what The Avengers (off 50%) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (down 72%) dropped in their second weekends. The Dark Knight Rises has brought in $289 million so far - by comparison The Dark Knight had made $313.7 million and The Avengers already had $373 million in the same time frame. No doubt the shooting still has strong reverberations across the country. Another factor, at least on Friday, was that the Olympic opening ceremonies had some of the highest ratings in history - meaning a lot of people stayed home to watch them rather than go out to the movies. There is still plenty of legs left for this film, however, and it has already blow past its projected budget.

The success of the Dark Knight didn't rub off on either of the new films that debuted. Both The Watch and Step Up Revolution failed too gain much traction. The Watch, considering its high-profile cast, has to be seen as the bigger disappointment. Despite Ben Stiller and Jonah Hill leading the charge, the film landed in third place with just $13 million and earned a none-too-exciting C+ score from audiences. With a budge of $68 million, it will be lucky to hit that mark by the time its run is over.

Step Up Revolution was fourth with $11.8 million. That's the worst opening for a Step Up movie yet (Step Up 3-D brought in $15.8 million in 2010) and may show that audiences are ready to move on from the street dance genre. Maybe the series can get Channing Tatum back on board, seeing how successful he's been so far this year... good luck with that Summit Entertainment.

Coming in second was Ice Age: Continental Drift with $13.3 million, down about 40% from last week. The film has grossed $114.8 million in three weeks, and its shaping up to be the lowest-grossing film in the series and won't be able to approach the $200 million that Brave and and Madagascar 3 has blown past this year.

Rounding out the top five, Ted held on surprisingly well after five weeks, down just 26.6% from last week and took in an additional $7.35 million to wind up with $193.6 million. The film clearly has enough steam left to cross the $200 million mark - if not next week, than certainly the week following. Like The Hangover, it's an R-rated comedy that was timed just right and resonated with audiences.

Next week another live-action family film looks to do as well as its animated counterpart when Diary of Wimpy Kid: Dog Days hits theaters and Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel hope the remake bug treats them right when Total Recall opens.