Weekend Box Office (03/04/12): The Lorax opens to $70 million, setting an animation record, while Project X opens to $20 million.

The full weekend chart HERE.  See this is what happens when you have just two major cartoon during the Winter/Spring season instead of six.  Last year, February, March, and April saw an onslaught on high-profile animated features, five of which opened just in March and April.  Gnomeo and Juliet ($25 million opening/$99 million domestic total), Rango ($38 million/$123 million) Hop ($37 million/$103 million), and Rio ($39 million/$143 million) all did well, but were burdened by directly competing with each other.  Mars Needs Moms ($6.9 million/$21 million) was one of the biggest box office bombs in modern history while the never-had-a-chance Hoodwinked: Hood vs. Evil ($4 million/$10 million) was DOA.  This time around, it's The Lorax or nothing (that second cartoon I mentioned doesn't open until April 27th), which coupled with the absolute lack of truly new kid-friendly product and the relative disinterest in domestic audiences in Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (which was still leggy enough to gross $130 million domestic) and The Adventures of Tintin (which is no flop with $372 million worldwide), left a very large gap in the marketplace.  No you can see how its $70 million opening is not *that* surprising.

Weekend Box Office (12/11/11) New Year's Eve and The Sitter open weak while Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Young Adult open huge in limited release.

In what one might call 'the calm before the storm', two middling wide releases debuted to relatively middling numbers.  Next week sees a flurry of major wide releases over the last two weeks of the year, so this frame was a bit of a breather.  The top film was New Year's Eve, which debuted with $13.8 million.  That's one of the weakest #1 debuts of the year, and about $1 million less than Valentine's Day grossed on its first day back in February 2010.  That film scored the record for a romantic comedy debut with $56 million over Fri-Sun.  Of course, that film had romantic comedy heavyweights like Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Queen Latifah, and Jennifer Garner.  This film had a slightly lower-wattage cast, with only Katherine Heigl and Zac Efron qualifying as box office draws.  The newbies this time around (Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, Hillary Swank, Jon Bon Jovi, Halle Berry, Lea Michele, etc) are names, but not actual 'bring them to the theater' movie stars.