REAL STEEL WINS ROUND ONE

Real Steel may have wound up as the No. 1 film at the box office, earning $27.3 million and making it one of the top earners ever in October, but several analysts were saying that the film, which reportedly cost $125 million to make, will eventually cost the Disney/DreamWorks partnership tens of millions of dollars. Box Office Mojo’s Ray Subers observed on Monday that 66 percent of the audience was male and 70 percent 35 or younger. “Movies that play to young male audiences tend to be fairly front-loaded,” Subers wrote, referring to films that attract the overwhelming majority of their business in the first two weeks. And with tough competition on the horizon, he noted, “it’s tough to see how Real Steel gets close to $100 million.” Coming in second was the relatively low-budget The Ides of March directed by George Clooney and starring Clooney and Ryan Gosling. It took in $10.47 million. Longtime box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian said that a 23-percent jump in business from Friday to Saturday indicated “solid word-of-mouth.” Coming in third was last week’s champ, Dolphin Tale, which had a modest drop in its third weekend of only 34 percent.

The top ten films over the weekend, according to final figures compiled by Box Office Mojo (figures in parentheses represent total gross to date):
1. Real Steel, Disney, $27,319,677, (New); 2. Ides of March, Sony, $10,470,143, (New); 3. Dolphin Tale, Warner Bros., $9,131,091, 3 Wks. ($49,040,736); 4. Moneyball, Sony, $7,453,989, 3 Wks. ($49,207,167); 5. 50/50, Summit, $5,652,149, 2 Wks. ($17,482,521); 6. Courageous, Sony/Tristar, $4,867,876, 2 Wks. ($16,160,032); 7. The Lion King, Disney, $4,598,606, 4 Wks. ($86,008,595); 8. Dream House, Universal, $4,475,525, 2 Wks. ($14,467,490); 9. What’s Your Number?, 20th Century Fox, $3,126,782, 2 Wks. ($10,382,800); 10. Contagion, Warner Bros., $2,942,322, 4 Wks. ($69,026,543).