Weekend Box Office: “Skyfall” soars

"Skyfall" took the box office by storm this weekend, with a Bond series best $87.8m opening.As I predicted in this week’s edition of Box Office Beat, “Skyfall” ended up earning the biggest opening weekend of any James Bond film to date, surpassing the last installment, “Quantum of Solace,” by about 30 percent. “Skyfall” grossed $87.8 million over the three-day and an even $90.0m when accounting for Thursday IMAX preview shows. That’s a big victory for studio Sony.

There wasn’t a ton of box office action outside of “Skyfall,” but pretty much every holdover held up well, with Disney’s second-place “Wreck-It Ralph” falling just 32.6 percent to $33.1m. It will pass $100m this week. “Flight” and “Argo” were in third and fourth place, respectively, and both are headed for the century mark themselves.

Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” starring Daniel Day-Lewis also opened, albeit in just 11 theaters in key markets. The film had a very strong per-theater-average of $81,818 for a $900,000 total and 15th place at the overall box office. It expands to 1,500 sites next weekend; we’ll see if it can capitalize on its awards buzz with the masses.

Check out the full top 10 chart below:

No. Title Weekend Per Theater Average Total
1 “Skyfall” $87.8M $25,050 $90.0M
2 “Wreck-It Ralph” $33.1M $8,810 $93.7M
3 “Flight” $15.1M $7,377 $47.8M
4 “Argo” $6.7M $2,441 $85.7M
5 “Taken 2” $4.0M $1,608 $131.9M
6 “Here Comes the Boom” $2.6M $1,248 $39.1M
7 “Cloud Atlas” $2.5M $1,248 $22.7M
8 “Pitch Perfect” $2.5M $1,800 $59.0M
9 “The Man with the Iron Fists” $2.5M $1,330 $12.7M
10 “Hotel Transylvania” $2.4M $916 $140.9M

Source: Box Office Mojo