OLYMPICS: GREAT FOR NBC; LOUSY FOR MOVIES

The closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in London may have drawn record ratings for a non-U.S. Olympics, but clearly some of that audience opted to stay home on Sunday rather than go to movie theaters. Universal had figured that ticket sales for The Bourne Legacy on Sunday would fall, but the actual plunge that occurred must have flummoxed some executives. The movie wound up taking in $2.2 million less on Sunday than expected, settling for a weekend total of $38.1 million rather than the estimated $40.3 million. (Weekend estimates released on Sunday represent a combination of actual ticket sales for Friday and Saturday and an educated guess of sales for Sunday.) Other releases showed similar disparities between the estimated figure and the actual result. For example, Warner Bros.’ The Campaign, which the studio thought would bring in around $27.4 million, actually wound up with $26.6 million, to place second. And another newcomer, Hope Springs, which Sony had figured would open with $15.6 million, actually ended up with $14.7 million. Overall, the box office was down 8 percent from the same weekend a year ago, when the second weekend of Rise of the Planet of the Apes led with $27.8 million, followed closely by the opening of Disney’s The Help with $26 million.

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. The Bourne Legacy, Universal, $38,142,825, (New); 2. Campaign, Warner Bros., $26,588,460, (New); 3. The Dark Knight Rises, Warner Bros., $18,979,397, 4 Wks. ($389,588,216); 4. Hope Springs, Sony, $14,650,121, 1 Wk. ($19,103,178 — From Wednesday); 5. Total Recall, Sony, $8,013,040, 2 Wks. ($44,101,432); 6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, 20th Century Fox, $8,002,133, 2 Wks. ($30,356,174); 7. Ice Age: Continental Drift, 20th Century Fox, $6,380,929, 5 Wks. ($143,694,981); 8. Ted, Universal, $3,223,675, 7 Wks. ($209,848,585); 9. Step Up: Revolution, Lionsgate, $2,941,818, 3 Wks. ($30,256,580); 10. The Watch, 20th Century Fox, $2,221,451, 3 Wks. ($31,396,079)