According to Boxofficemojo, News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! is still selling a lot of tickets at the domestic box office, earning about $25 million over the Easter weekend. Its cumulative total now stands at approximately $86 million. That performance was good enough for the film to retain its number-one standing for the second weekend in a row. This isn't terribly surprising, since quality family pictures have a good chance of doing well during holiday periods.
During the weekend, I composed a post about the Tyler Perry franchise and its importance to shareholders of Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF). Well, I was wrong about its potential in regard to Drillbit Taylor, which was distributed by Viacom (NYSE: VIA). While Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns is estimated to have grossed about $20 million in theaters, Taylor is credited with about half that amount. Apparently, the comedic star-power of Owen Wilson wasn't enough to trump the popularity of Tyler Perry's cinematic storytelling; Browns came in at second place, and it should be noted that its per-theater average was much higher than Horton's.
News Corp. shareholders should be pleased that it placed another film in the top four -- the horror movie Shutter, which I'd presume benefited from a lot of teens and college students looking to take themselves and/or their dates to a good scare over the weekend. Taylor and Shutter are fighting, as I write this, for third place, as estimates place them both at $10 million. In fifth place is Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) 10,000 B.C., with a gross of $8.7 million. That film is dropping fast it seems, going from second place to fifth place in the matter of a week, and its total domestic gross is valued at around $76 million, which is $10 million less that Horton's cume. Cavemen have nothing over the good Dr. Seuss.
So there you have it -- the first box-office numbers of spring might not show a multiplex marketplace on fire, but they are decent enough I suppose. Will Tyler Perry see a big drop next weekend? Or will word of mouth help him? I'm not sure what will happen, but out of all these films, it is Drillbit Taylor that I want to see before it hits DVD. I guess my taste isn't too relevant at the moment...
Disclosure: I don't own stock in any of the companies mentioned here; positions can change at any time.
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