Viewers wanting to spend the holidays with a dysfunctional family other than their own helped secure Little Fockers the top spot. But even a significant boost on Christmas Day couldn’t keep the comedy from under-performing, pulling in $34 million over the weekend and taking its five-day cume up to $48 million. Not terrible numbers by any means, but definitely not as high as Universal was hoping. And with a B- CinemaScore rating, it is unlikely the threequel will end up coming close to the $279.3 million total gross of its predecessor, Meet the Fockers.
The real success story of the weekend was True Grit, which took a six-shooter to expectations and landed itself a nice No. 2 spot with $25.6 million. That’s nearly double the studio’s original estimate and marks the biggest opening ever for a Coen Bros. film, trampling Burn After Reading’s $19.1 million. It is also the biggest first weekend for a Western since 1997’s Wild Wild West. (It’s undoubtedly a more respectable entry in the genre than that wild wild mess, nabbing a B+ CinemaScore grade from audiences and, surprising considering the type of film it is, an A- from those under 25.) If nothing else, this blustery Christmas weekend showed that revenge, or at least a revenge-fueled Western, is a dish best served cold.
True Grit is followed by TRON: Legacy, which has by now downloaded about $88.3 million into Disney’s coffers. The digitized sequel will have to keep going strong if it hopes to stay in the black considering its sizable budget. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Yogi Bear round out the Top 5, showing that families looking for wholesome entertainment had no problem choosing something a few weeks old over the stale-on-delivery Gulliver’s Travels, which debuted at No. 7 with a Lilliputian $7.2 million. And in limited release, awards-buzz films did well. The King’s Speech, which experienced its first major expansion, received a quite eloquent $4.6 million in 700 theaters, giving it a $6,511 per-screen average.
1. Little Fockers: $34 mil
2. True Grit: $25.6 mil
3. TRON: Legacy: $20.1 mil
4. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: $10.8 mil
5. Yogi Bear: $8.8 mil
