User blog:Ceauntay/'The Dark Knight Rises' Again At Box Office!

In the wake of the tragic movie theater shootings in Aurora, Colo., The Dark Knight Rises has continued to perform well at the box office, taking the number one spot as expected in its second weekend with $64.075 million (against a 60% drop)and a 10 day North American total of $289.086 million. However, like all of the other films in the marketplace it took a fairly big hit with the first weekend of Olympic coverage taking a bite out of the box office. Here's how the top 5 fared:


 * 1) The Dark Knight Rises - $64,075,000 weekend (60% drop) / $289,086,000 to date
 * 2) iCarly: The Sequel - $35,905,000
 * 3) Ice Age: Continental Drift - $13,300,000 / $114,847,214 to date
 * 4) The Watch - $13,000,000
 * 5) Step Up Revolution - $11,800,000

As comparison, 2008's The Dark Knight took a 53% drop in its second weekend with a gross of $75.17 million and a 10 day cumulative gross of $313.8 million. IMAX continues to add to the bottom line with $9 million plus giant screen dollars this weekend and $38 million to date since the trilogy-ender's North American debut.

Paramount's iCarly: The Sequel debuts to a strong second place this weekend taking in $35.9 million. Opening in 3,745 theaters, the sequel is on par from the release of ''iCarly: The Movie', which made $50.3 million. What's even impressive, it overseas gross of $41.4 million rescues the U.S. box office, bringing its worldwide total to $77.3 million.

Twentieth Century Fox’s Ice Age: Continental Drift drifts into its third weekend after continuing to make a huge splash overseas and enters its second weekend with nearly $100 million in North America and a worldwide tally of nearly $540 million! The 3-D family animated release should continue to provide a nice family alternative to more adult-oriented films in the marketplace. A gross of $13.3 million this weekend has boosted its fortunes to nearly $115 million in N. America by Sunday night.

Debuting this weekend is The Watch from Twentieth Century Fox, starring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Jonah Hill. This sci-fi comedy follows a group of dads who form a neighborhood watch committee to break up their monotonous daily routine, but unexpectedly find themselves defending the Earth from an alien invasion. Opening in 3,168 theaters, the R-rated comedy wound up with a $13 million gross this weekend.

Lionsgate's release of Summit Entertainment’s Step Up Revolution in 3-D also danced its way onto screens this weekend in 2,657 theaters. This is the fourth installment in the Step Up film series; the original film, released in 2006, starred Channing Tatum, had an opening weekend take of $20.6 million, and went on to earn $65.3 million. The unexpected success of that film spawned three sequels (including the latest film) with 2008’s Step Up 2 The Streets opening with $18.9 million and 2010’s Step Up 3-D making a $15.8 million splash in its debut. This PG-13 rated story of a young woman who lands in Miami with dreams of becoming a professional dancer debuted with a little under $12 million this weekend.

Universal’s comedy smash Ted generated $7 million this weekend while Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man reboot starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone entered its fourth weekend with well over $600 million in worldwide web-slinging dollars and grabbed another $6.7 million this weekend.

Unfortunately this was a very slow weekend at the box office, but help is on the way with Sony's sci-fi re-boot of Total Recall and Fox's kid-friendly Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days opening this Friday.

Follow Paul on Twitter @PDergarabedian

[Photo Credit: Warner Bros.]