High School trumps Saw
2008-10-27 08:02
Dean Goodman
Los Angeles - In one of the more
unusual duels at the North American box office, a perky Disney
romantic musical trumped the fifth instalment in the grisly
Saw horror series, according to studio estimates issued on
Sunday.
High School Musical 3: Senior Year, the first big-screen
adaptation of Walt Disney Co's popular TV movie franchise, sold
$42m worth of tickets during its first three days.
The
opening sets a new record for a musical, surpassing the $27.8m bow of the ABBA-themed romance Mamma Mia! in July.
Saw V followed with $30.5m, in line with the
previous three instalments. Moviegoers can expect additional
sequels of both films.
Second dud for Warner Bros
The one-two punch of the disparate duo propelled overall
weekend sales to their highest level in 10 weeks.
The top 12
films grossed $120m, according to tracking firm Media By
Numbers, up about 40% from both last weekend and the
year-ago weekend.
But the news was not all good. The new cop drama Pride and
Glory, starring Edward Norton and Colin Farrell, opened at No
5 with just $6.3m.
It marks the second consecutive dud
for Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros following Body of Lies,
starring Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio, two weeks ago.
Disney, on the other hand, is enjoying a strong fall, first
with Beverly Hills Chihuahua three weeks ago, and now with
High School Musical 3.
'Music travels'
The movie also opened in 19
international markets, and was No 1 in each of them, led by
Britain with $13m.
"Music travels," said Mark Zoradi, president of Buena Vista
International, Disney's foreign arm. "Sometimes American comedy
is difficult to travel, but this is a relatively simple story
and a good quality, fun movie."
The song-and-dance franchise has generated two smash TV
movies and two chart-topping albums, and it made teen idols out
of its stars, Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale.
The three films were directed by Dirty Dancing choreographer
Kenny Ortega.
Exit polling in North America indicated three-quarters of
the audience was female, and just over half were under 18,
Disney said. About two-thirds were families.
The plot of the new film brings the cast back to their
fictional New Mexico high school, where Troy (Efron) must
decide between pursuing a basketball scholarship or his
song-and-dance dreams. The usual teen-angst issues ensue.
'Biggest horror franchise' soon
Saw V is the latest instalment in the spectacularly
profitable torture franchise that kicked off in 2004.
Every
October since then, a new Saw movie has opened at No 1 in
the $30m range.
Total sales peaked at $87m for
Saw II, and the film's distributor, Lionsgate, hopes the new
one will finish up in the $60m range.
The studio, a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp, said
Saw will soon become the biggest horror franchise, with total
domestic sales about $1m short of the $318m haul
of the 11 Friday the 13th films.
Last weekend's champ, the Mark Wahlberg thriller Max
Payne, slipped to No 3 with $7.6m, taking its 10-day
haul to $29.7m. The film was released by 20th Century
Fox, a unit of News Corp.
- Reuters