'Breaking Dawn' saves slow box-office weekend

LOS ANGELES (AP):

The latest Twilight movie cast the longest shadow with US$16.9 million for a third-straight number-one finish during one of the year's slowest weekends at the box office.

Business was dismal, with box-office tracker Hollywood.com estimating yesterday that domestic revenues totalled just US$82 million. That puts it barely ahead of Hollywood's worst haul of the year, when revenues were US$81.5 million on the second weekend in September.

Once studios release final numbers today, this past weekend could come in as the worst of the year if revenues finish even lower.

The first weekend of December often presents a lull in between big Thanksgiving releases and the onslaught of year-end blockbusters that arrive a bit later. But this big a slowdown is surprising given that there's quality stuff out there among the top-10 films, particularly family fare such as The Muppets, Hugo and Arthur Christmas.

Hollywood executives usually blame bad weekends on a weak crop of movies.

"It's tough to blame it on the product when the product is pretty good and the films are solid," said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "While the post-Thanksgiving weekend is typically slow, it's not usually this slow."

The dreary weekend comes after a relatively quiet Thanksgiving holiday at movie cinemas, despite analysts' predictions of potential holiday records because of a great line-up of films.

Gadget competition

But more fans might be thinking twice about heading out to cinemas given the new entertainment options they have with Apple's iPad, Amazon's Kindle products and other gadgets, along with their big-screen home set-ups for movies and television.

Or it could be that Hollywood has temporarily neglected its mainstay audience of young males. Dergarabedian said there's little out there now for guys looking for thrills and laughs.

That will change in the coming weeks as Jonah Hill's comedy The Sitter opens Friday, followed by a rush of action tales: Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin.

Women and families continue to dominate the scanty business at cinemas now. Summit Entertainment's female-driven blockbuster The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 raised its domestic haul to US$247.3 million.

Coming in second again was Disney's The Muppets with US$11.2 million, lifting the family film's domestic total to US$56.1 million. Despite good reviews, though, The Muppets audience was off more sharply than any other top-10 movie compared to Thanksgiving weekend.

Paramount's family adventure Hugo, an acclaimed saga directed by Martin Scorsese, finished third with US$7.6 million, raising its domestic take to US$25.2 million.

Sony's animated holiday comedy Arthur Christmas was fourth with US$7.4 million, pushing its total to US$25.3 million.

In limited release, Fox Searchlight's sexually explicit drama Shame opened strongly with US$361,181 at 10 cinemas in six cities. Shame expands to six more cities Friday.

Starring Michael Fassbender in a grim portrait of a sex addict, Shame is the latest film angling to lure moviegoers despite an NC-17 rating that prohibits anyone younger than 17 from seeing it.

Some fans and cinemas equate the NC-17 tag with pornography, but serious films with that rating occasionally break through and find an audience. Fox Searchlight is positioning Shame for Academy Awards attention after the film earned Fassbender the best-actor prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday