More than sheer spectacle is necessary if a film is to maintain some strength throughout its box office run. If it suffers from bad word-of-mouth, odds are that the numbers will experience percentage drops of more than 50% in subsequent weekends. More often than not, Pixar films have stayed strong in their third and fourth weekends and beyond, making the Pixar brand extremely bankable. Pixar’s Brave grossed an estimated $20 million in its third weekend, which now has it closing in upon the $200 million mark.
Dropping only 40% from its $34 million take last weekend, Brave took in an estimated $20,162,000 this weekend (numbers via Box Office Mojo):
- Friday………$6,238,000
- Saturday…..$7,794,000
- Sunday…….$6,130,000
This brings Brave‘s total domestic gross up to about $175 million, all but ensuring that Pixar’s latest film will cross the $200 million milestone soon. Where the film’s total gross ends up will depend on its strength over the coming weeks. The fourth Ice Age film opens next weekend and will pose the biggest threat so far to Brave – the films are thematically different, but both appeal to the family crowd. If Brave continues to hold well in the next few weekends, then the film has a large shot at the mid-$200 million range, where many of Pixar’s films lie – that is some great company.
Stay tuned for more coverage on Brave‘s box office run. It will be interesting to see how the film performs worldwide, as many large foreign markets have yet to see the film’s release. However, there is little doubt that it will have great success outside of North America as well.
