When not catching up with family and friends over a plate of turkey or a piece of pumpkin pie over the holiday, Americans preferred to spend their time with vampires, werewolves, and puppets — as opposed to Santa’s elves and an adorable Paris orphan. Three family films opened Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. But it’s the dark supernatural tale that opened the week before that’s going to top the holiday weekend box office. “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1” crushed its competitors on Wednesday and Thursday, and will certainly clean up over the weekend. The fourth film of the franchise based on Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling books earned more than $20 million at the box office on Thanksgiving and the day before.
The fourth of the five-movie sequence had already earned its production budget back in its first weekend: It cost around $110 million to make, and collected more than $179 million domestically.
Three of the four new films to open before the holiday — excepting “My Week with Marilyn” — were aimed at children and the parents who take them to the movie. It seemed to make sense, given that Thanksgiving is the busiest travel time of the year, bringing Americans of all ages together with their families. But none of those three is seeing anything like the business “Breaking Dawn” is this weekend.
“The Muppets” did the best of the rest, collecting $12.5 million on Wednesday and Thursday — not much more than half of “Twilight” ‘s take. Executives expected the movie to earn about $45 million this weekend, but it now looks like the latest film to feature Jim Henson’s creations will make closer to $40 million.
But that film, which stars Jason Segel and Amy Adams alongside the lovable puppets, still did three times the business of each of its family-focused competitors.
“Hugo” is a departure for Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese, a movie based on a children’s book that he filmed in 3D, at a reported cost of $170 million. It made just $4 million in its first two days, and estimates have it making $15 million by the end of the weekend — less than a tenth of its production budget.
“Arthur Christmas” did similar business. The British-American animated film, featuring the voices of James McAvoy, Bill Nighy, Jim Broadbent and Hugh Laurie, took in a bit more, around $4.25 million. It’s also expected to make around $15 million by Sunday night. It cost less to make than “Hugo,” however — about $100 million.
Perhaps the numbers shouldn’t surprise Hollywood as much as they seem to. “Hugo” is based on Brian Selznick’s “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” an award-winning children’s book that’s half pictures, half story. But how many children will have the patience to sit through a movie that’s more than two hours? “Arthur Christmas” was well done, but won’t even attain the classic status of some of the Christmas claymation specials broadcast on television each year. “The Muppets” is a friendly homage to the characters that first appeared in their own television series in the 1970s — but the film seems geared more toward viewers who watched the originals than a new set of fans.
And though the latest “Twilight” film features a gruesome C-section and plenty of blood, it might be classified as a family film: Both teenage girls and their mothers have fallen in love with Edward and Bella, the vampire and the human at the heart of the series’ love story.
