For the second holiday weekend in a row, three of the top five movies were 3D presentations.
In fact, over the New Year’s weekend, four of the top six and five of the top eight movies were in 3D, according to Hollywood.com Box Office.
That mirrors the 3D box office picture for all of 2010, with five of the top nine and 10 of the top 16 movies being 3D, according to Box Office Mojo, led by two from Disney, “Toy Story 3” ($415 mil.) and “Alice in Wonderland” ($334 mil.), and three others over $200 mil.: Universal’s first 3D entry “Despicable Me” ($251 mil.), and two from DreamWorks Animation: “Shrek Forever After” ($238 mil.), and “How to Train Your Dragon” ($218 mil.).
That doesn’t even include “Avatar,” which collected more than $600 mil. of its $750 mil. in 2010 after opening Dec. 18, 2009.
Overall box office grosses dropped from $10.6 bil. in 2009 to $10.3 bil. in 2010, and the picture would have been far worse had it not been for 3D. Several analysts say ticket sales were down about 5% again this year, with an estimated 8% of this year’s grosses — about $850 mil. — coming from the $3 – $4 premium on tickets for 3D movies, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Of the top 100 movies of the year, 19 were in 3D, with about twice that many already scheduled for release in 2011, including seven 3D films in January and February.
Disney had two more 3D successes during the holidays. Over the past holiday weekend, third-ranked “Tron: Legacy” zapped another $18.3 mil. from North American consumer’s wallets to raise its overall top score among the top 10 movies of the weekend to $130.8 mil., followed by “Yogi Bear” in fourth place with $13 mil. ($66.1 mil. to date), “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” in fifth with $10.5 mil. ($87.1 mil.); and “Tangled” in sixth with $10 mil. ($168 mil.).
The Christmas day opener “Gulliver’s Travels” picked up another $9.1 mil. to rank eighth on the weekend and grow to a total of $27.2 mil.
— By Scott Hettrick
Yea! Go 3d!!!