Horton It's A Champ!!

LAST WEEKEND North American film fans heard the call of the elephant and stampeded to the box office to see the animated Dr. Seuss pic Horton Hears a Who which enjoyed the largest opening weekend of the year so far. The testosterone flick Never Back Down launched to decent numbers, however the virus thriller Doomsday was dead on arrival in its debut. But toon power was able to revitalize the marketplace sending the top ten above the $100M mark and ahead of year-ago levels for the first time in a month.

Jim Carrey and Steve Carell lent their voices to Horton and ticket buyers responded spending $45M on the Fox hit for a strong number one premiere, according to final studio figures. The G-rated tale bowed ultrawide in 3,954 locations and averaged a sturdy $11,384 per theater. The Whoville story generated the fourth best March opening ever behind 300 ($70.9M), Ice Age: The Meltdown ($68M), and the original Ice Age ($46.3M) and also landed the fifth largest opening in history for a G-rated film.

Horton took advantage of starpower, the popularity of the Seuss brand, and an open marketplace with few options for families to help it post the year's best debut. But the film went beyond just parents and kids with the studio reporting that 47% of the audience was non-family with teens kicking in a significant contribution. Budgeted at $85M, the animated feature also garnered glowing reviews from most critics. Horton bowed in 29 international markets as well this weekend and captured an estimated $14.2M tally.

Animated films opening in March usually enjoy strong legs thanks to the Easter holiday and school vacations. Ice Age's opening weekend represented only 26% of its eventual $176.4M domestic final. Fox's 2005 film Robots witnessed a 28% share, Meltdown played like a sequel and saw 35%, and last year's Disney offering Meet the Robinsons grabbed 26%. Horton should follow in the same footsteps as direct competition in the coming weeks is not too fierce leading to possibly $150-175M from North America alone.

Trailing the animated elephant were the woolly mammoths of 10,000 BC. The not-so-accurate account of prehistoric times fell 53% in its second outing to $16.8M and pushed the total to $61.6M after ten days. Given the bad reviews, negative word-of-mouth and the genre, the sharp decline was expected. The Warner Bros. title is playing almost exactly like another spring historical actioner - 2002's The Scorpion King. The Rock starrer generated similar numbers with a $36.1M debut and $61.3M ten-day take before concluding with $90.5M. 10,000 BC should find its way to the same vicinity domestically. Overseas, the prehistoric pic collected a mighty $39.2M this weekend as it saw top spot debuts in the United Kingdom, Korea, and Russia and second place launches in France and Italy. The international cume has risen to $74M putting the global gross at an impressive $135M.

#	Title	Mar 14 - 16				Weeks		Cumulative	Distributor
1	Horton Hears A Who	$ 45,012,998				1		$ 45,012,998	Fox
2	10,000 B.C.	16,773,312				2		61,577,423	Warner Bros.
3	Never Back Down	8,603,195				1		8,603,195	Summit
4	College Road Trip	7,810,400				2		24,203,543	Buena Vista
5	Vantage Point	5,462,747				4		59,263,128	Sony
6	The Bank Job	5,054,961				2		13,257,949	Lionsgate
7	Doomsday	4,926,565				1		4,926,565	Universal
8	Semi-Pro	3,043,162				3		29,809,714	New Line
9	The Other Boleyn Girl	2,882,846				3		19,153,729	Sony
10	The Spiderwick Chronicles	2,335,238				5		65,376,031	Paramount
11	Jumper	2,025,810				5		75,657,556	Fox
12	Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day	1,940,781				2		5,299,639	Focus
13	Fool's Gold	1,688,262				6		65,356,918	Warner Bros.
14	Step Up 2 The Streets	1,531,231				5		55,458,225	Buena Vista
15	Juno	1,192,817				15		139,812,288	Fox Searchlight
16	Penelope	886,917				3		8,258,801	Summit
17	Definitely, Maybe	695,520				5		30,689,995	Universal
18	The Bucket List	618,202				12		90,218,795	Warner Bros.
19	Be Kind Rewind	591,578				4		9,982,615	New Line
20	Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins	579,165				6		41,666,605	Universal