Weekend Box Office

Animation in the current cycle has only one entrant the Top Ten (see above), but super heroes? Going like gangbusters! (Mostly) ...

THREE DAYS OF GROSSES

1) The Curse of La Llorona -- 3,372 -- $26.5M -- $26.5M (1st weekend)

2) Shazam! -- 4,183 (-123) -- $17.3M (-29%) -- $121.3M

3) Breakthrough -- 2,824 -- $11.1M -- $14.6M (1st weekend)

4) Captain Marvel -- 2,653 (-322) -- $9.1M (+6%) -- $400M

5) Little -- 2,667 -- $8.4M (-45%) -- $29.3M

6) Dumbo -- 3,225 (-481) -- $6.8M (-28%) -- $101.2M

7) Pet Sematary -- 3,146 (-439) -- $4.8M d(-50%) -- $49.5M

8) Missing Link -- 3,437 (+24) -- $4.3M (-27%) -- $12.9M

9) Us -- 2,264 (-504) -- $4.2M (-37%) -- $170.4M

10) Hellboy -- 3,303 $1.3M -- $3.8M (-68%) -- $19.6M

Only the well-reviewed but under-performing stop-motion feature Missing Link resides in the big list. But several other cartoons are still in circulation ...

14) How To Train Your Dragon 3 -- 1,062 -- $817k -- $159M

25) The LEGO Movie 2 -- 222 -- $134k -- $105.6M

74) Asterix -- 7 theaters -- $5,272 -- $1.3M

Other box office news (most of it weeks old but interesting to moi): Fathom Events, in collaboration with Turner Classic Movies, rolls out old classics in pristine condition and showcases them in chosen theaters for a few days during a given month. Recently they've distributed My Fair Lady and Ben Hur, but last month the 80th anniversary release of Gone with the Wind grossed $2.23 million in six nationwide screenings on four dates — a record for a classic film Fathom. (The previous record was set in January by Fathom’s re-release of the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz with $2 million.)

My question: though producer David Selznick sold his ownership stake in GWTW in the early 1940s (a truly short-sighted move), older brother Myron Selznick's estate still owns a small percentage of the picture ... and what kind of cash flow could the heirs of old Myron still be getting? Be interesting to know.