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