The second time is too much of a charm for the dancing penguins of Happy Feet Two, which opened to a $22 million box-office total domestically. The first outing of George Miller’s Oscar-winning feature made $41.5 million over the same weekend in 2006. The CG-animated birds had tough competition from Twilight: Breaking Dawn—Part 1, which made $139.5 million domestically and $144 million overseas. The overall gross of $283.5 million beat the vampire franchise’s previous global records.
Warner Bros.’ president of distribution Dan Fellman told The Hollywood Reporter “We certainly didn’t open to the number we expected, but hopefully we’ll catch up over Thanksgiving week and weekend, Our exits were very good, but there was a lot of competition for the female audience, between Twilight, Jack and Jill and Puss in Boots.”
DreamWorks’ Puss in Boots made $10.7 million domestically, bringing its total cum to $122.3 million at the No. 5 spot. Meanwhile, overseas Sony-Paramount’s The Adventures of Tintin continues to bring in the family audiences, adding another $21.7 million from 13,039 screens in 53 markets. The film has made over $187.6 million after only a few weeks in theaters. Tintin will open stateside on December 21. Watch out for more fireworks when Disney’s The Muppets and Sony/Aardman’s Arthur Christmas open on Wednesday.
