March 5, 2012 by Vinnie Leduc
The Lorax‘s $70.7M opening last weekend, the biggest of 2012 so far, easily broke The Vow’s surprising $41.2M debut three weeks ago. Only six movies last year opened to numbers above $70 million, and The Lorax‘s nearly doubled expectations. It was the third-highest March opening of all time (behind only 300 and Alice in Wonderland), the fourth-highest ever for an animated non-sequel, and the eighth-highest ever for an animated film ever. For Universal, it was the studio’s biggest ever for an animated film and the fourth biggest ever overall.
Party movie Project X, on the heels of Chronicle and The Devil Inside, continued the trend of strong openings for found footage films and bumped last week’s champ, Act of Valor, to third place.
Here were the top five in the domestic box office last weekend via BOM:
- Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax — Weekend Gross: $70.7 million — Total Gross: $70.7 million (new)
- Project X— Weekend Gross: $20.8 million — Total Gross: $20.8 million (new)
- Act of Valor — Weekend Gross: $13.7 million — Total Gross: $45.2 million (#1 last week)
- Safe House — Weekend Gross: $7.2 million — Total Gross: $108.2 million (#4 last week)
- Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds — Weekend Gross: $7 million — Total Gross: $25.7 million (#2 last week)
