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DreamWorks’ The Croods opened in first place at the U.S. box office with $43.6 million. That is almost the exact same opening as Chris Sanders’ last film, How to Train Your Dragon, which opened with $43.7 million in 2010. It is also much stronger than the studio’s last film, Rise of the Guardians, which earned $23.8 million during its opening weekend last November. The Croods netted an additional $62.6 million from its foreign debut. Russia, which as we’ve established is crazy for DreamWorks animation, was the film’s top foreign market and generated $12.9 million in box office earnings.

In other box office news, The Weinstein Company’s Escape from Planet Earth is winding down its theatrical run. It grossed $477,522 in its sixth frame, upping its total to $53.4 million. GKIDS expanded Goro Miyazaki’s From Up on Poppy Hill into 6 theaters and grossed $59,693. The film’s two-week U.S. total stands at $131,927.

Nearly 600 people took our Croods box office poll which asked readers to guess how much the film would earn during its opening weekend. The correct choice—$42-44 mil—was the sixth most popular answer, guessed by 7.35% of readers. Here were the top five guesses:

10.93% of readers guessed $38-40 mil
10.04% of readers guessed $40-42 mil
9.5% of readers guessed under $25 million
8.78% of readers guessed $36-38 mil
7.53% of readers guessed $30-32 mil

In its fifth weekend at the American box office, the Weinstein Company’s Escape from Planet Earth grossed an estimated $2.3 million, which was good enough for a 10th place finish. Its grand total now stands at $52.2 million, nudging it ahead of Hoodwinked as the top-grossing Weinstein animated pic. Hoodwinked earned $51.4 million when it was released in 2005.

Other VFX-heavy films in this week’s top 10 include Disney’s first-place finisher Oz The Great and Powerful, which captured $42.2M in its second weekend for a total of $145M, and Warner Bros/New Line’s $200-million mega-flop Jack the Giant Slayer, which picked up $6.2M in its 3rd weekend for a total of $53.9M.

The Weinstein Company’s Escape from Planet Earth surprised many people by earning a robust $21.1 million over the four-day President’s Day holiday weekend. Its success was all the more surprising because the B-list kiddie pleaser didn’t have a huge marketing presence, wasn’t made by a name-brand studio, and didn’t seem to have wide appeal beyond its target demographic. But it benefited from a quiet period for family films, while managing to surpass the debuts of other CG space pics like the $12.3M opening of Planet 51 (2009) and the $6.9M opening of Mars Needs Moms (2011).

The Moviefone website has an in-depth piece discussing the film’s strong opening. In there, Stephen Bruno, the Weinstein Co.’s marketing president, explained how he approached the advertising for Escape from Planet Earth:

“[It] was focused on first presenting our core audience with a longer form look at the full story via in-theater trailers, advertisements, and long-lead digital placement. The television campaign was bifurcated to raise awareness and interest with parents and kids, through a six week flight that first aimed [to] re-introduce the concept, then highlight the comedy, and of course close with the exceptional voice cast.”

Bruno makes it sound easy, but the real proof will be if he can repeat this success with the next three Weinstein animated films planned for release this year.

Today marks the American release of the Weinstein Company’s Escape from Planet Earth, a film that is best known for the nasty legal fight surrounding its production. The film is produced by Canada’s Rainmaker Entertainment and directed by Cal Brunker, heretofore a board artist on features like Horton Hears A Who!, 9, Despicable Me, and Ice Age: Continental Drift.

Most box office projections are estimating around $10 million for the four-day President’s Day holiday weekend. That sounds about right. It’s been poorly promoted for a film that will open wide in nearly 3,300 theaters. Personally, I don’t recall seeing a single ad for the film in New York City, whereas any animated feature opening on so many screens is typically accompanied by subway ad campaigns plastered around the city.

Greatest. 7-Eleven. Product Placement. EVER! Directed by Cal Brunker, Escape From Planet Earth opens on Valentines Day, February 14th, 2013 from Weinstein Company and Rainmaker Entertainment.

A Brew reader who preferred to remain anonymous e-mailed his thoughts about this week’s lawsuit filed against The Weinstein Company and Rainmaker Entertainment. This reader, who worked at Rainmaker Entertainment on the aborted feature, feels that the director Tony Leech, who is currently suing The Weinstein Company and Rainmaker, is partly responsible for the mess. I don’t think anybody truly knows who deserves the lion’s share of the blame, but as I hinted at earlier, it does appear that every party involved exhibited incompetence to some degree:

I was working on the Escape from Planet Earth production a few years back, while Tony Leech was on-board. Reading your latest article on the TWC [The Weinstein Company] lawsuit I had to write and provide some inside perspective.

While at Rainmaker, I read through at least 2 major rewrites and countless adjustments to the script and let me be crystal clear, Tony Leech produced some of the worst writing I had the displeasure of reading in my career.

You can’t really blame TWC, pushing for rewrites as I’m sure they were as frustrated with the underwhelming results. His inexperience as noted by TWC is a very accurate description. As a “director”, not seeing the big picture or having a vision, micro managing, and the occasional public meltdown made everyone feel like they had to walk on eggshells around Tony. You can imagine how counterproductive the situation was to improving the movie.

I recall talking to the head of the story development, a talented storyboard artist, who was frustrated for not being able to contribute a single meaningful idea to the script due to Tony’s inability to collaborate on any level. He left the project soon after.

In hindsight, perhaps the biggest TWC mistake was not negotiating Tony off the project earlier. Some major spending could have been avoided.

The stories go on and on and every day was a comedy of errors. I personally had enough after 6 months and left, I felt sorry for my friends, pouring their hearts into a production that was going nowhere. Hopefully this helps shed some light on the subject. Thanks for a great website, I visit CB often and every time it’s a treat:)

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | 2 comments | Post tags: Brian Inerfeld, Escape from Planet Earth, Rainmaker Entertainment, The Weinstein Company, Tony Leech