Disney’s newest princess is getting a very welcome reception from audiences. Considering The Princess and the Frog had most of its fan base in school Friday and still managed to bring in $7 million for the day portends good things to come for the studio’s return to 2-D animation. Sandra Bullock’s The Blind Side continues to perform well, earning an additional $4.7 million for a second spot in Friday’s ranking. Clint Eastwood’s Invictus earned $2.9 million for a third place showing on its debut day in theaters, while The Twilight Saga: New Moon took in $2.4 million to push its gross beyond the $260 million mark. And rounding out the top five was Disney’s A Christmas Carol earning $1.7 million for the day. Check back tomorrow for a full weekend report.
Dec 12
2009
10:21 PM ET
Box office: 'Princess and the Frog' off to strong start on Friday
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love how they have to keep emphasizing how much twilight makes.
anyways, good for princess and the frog! i’ve always been a disney fanatic (well, old school disney, not this hannah montanna/high school musical nonsense) so it warms my heart to see them have a hit!
I love how everyone keeps complaining about it
I love how people keep complaining about the people complaining about it. One big happy family!
Invictus is a great uplifting story – great film from Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon who is fastly becoming my new favorite actor; can’t wait to see the next Bourne movie.
Too bad both Greengrass and Matt Damon dropped out of the 4th Bourne movie. I was looking forward to another!
they’ll be coming back, don’t worry
Saw Invictus last night and I agree 100%
I saw the Princess and the Frog opening night on Friday and I am seeing it again on Sunday. I loved it. Truely a worthy classic to add to the list of Disney movies. Oh and yeah, no one cares about Twilight.
eh the article is about the tp five movies of friday…. the nem moon mention isnt even a full sentence..
Alyssa, I hate to see you speak so lowly of yourself. You’re not “no one”, your a “someone”! Now chin up!
Obviously someone cares or the movie wouldn’t be performing so well. Why the bitterness? Have some Christmas cheer.
Oops…before the grammar police…who are certainly not in possession of aforementioned Christmas cheer…mistake my typo for total ignorance and illiteracy…I meant “you’re” not “your”.
Part of why it’s performaing so well is that it’s targeted at teens – who have both expendable cash and time. Part of why is that there is really no competition (it’s been a incredibly poor year for movies). Finally, there are a lot of people that have no interest in Twilight anything: attendence numbers show only a surprisingly small percentage of the population will ever see any film in the theater. Also, there is no correlation between box office and quality (obviously).
260 million sure is a lot for a movie no one cares about.
It was pretty front-loaded though, you have to admit.
Really looking forward to seeing Princess and the Frog. Not a big fan of Invictus. Saw The Damned United tonight and loved it, though!
Just saw this a few hours ago, and boy was it good. It took me back to old-school 90s Disney all the way, the stuff I grew up with as a kid. The characters were good, funny, and interesting, and the villain was creepy enough. I know I would have been scared of him as a small child. Prince Naveen actually ended up being a likeable character when he became a frog. My favorite character was the alligator, Louis. He reminded me so much of Baloo from “The Jungle Book”, which is definitely a plus. For the most part, I enjoyed the songs, especially Dr. Facilier’s “Are You Ready”. While my main enjoyment of a film comes out of its story, script, and characters (this film succeeded in all catagories), the fact that this was hand-drawn made it that much better.
This is right up there with the 90s classics, and even some of the earlier ones. This is one of those few instances where the film is actually better than the previews.
Not going to see Princess frog, invinctus, or blind side
All interethnic Obamaniac propaganda, all too annoying
WTF? Dude, your knuckles are dragging.
yes WE ALL MUST MAINTAIN THE SAME OPINIONS AND THOUGHTS PROCESS. WE MUST ALL ALLOW THE STATE TO THINK FOR OURSELVES. oh by the way bill the “black” blogosphere is in an uproar cause the prince is not black. stupid mouth-breather
Guess you’re dreaming of a White Christmas, huh GB. Does that stand for Gigantic Bigot? Sheesh…
Lol, all 3 of those movies are about hope, and you hate them/obama for that? Boy your family must love you.
hey gb the clan rally was rescheduled. some kind of mensa meeting was held instead?
Omigod! George Bush, you need to get a life!
hahahahaha interethnic huh? you do know it took animators about five years to do princess and the frog right? you know, when Bush was in office? (nevermind Bush’s cabinet was interethnic itself…)
Good for you. Who said the racist,bigot days of America were gone.
I’m not a fan of Obama either, but come on, those three films have nothing to do with the President. Hope and inspiration are not bad things, and they exist no matter who the President is.
really? I don’t like Obama, but the Princess and the Frog was in no way political propaganda. It was cute, brought me back to old school disney. And the characters, especially Ray, surprised me. You’re missing out, but whatever
“WAAH! LIBRULS! SOCIALISM! TEABAG ME! THERE’S A NIGRA IN THE WHITE HOUSE WHO WANTS MAH GUNS!”
You mouth-breathing simpleton.
This movie was in production 2-3 years before the 09 election…sooo….insinuating much? I think so
GB is a troll. Would love to see Invictus and the Princess and the Frog sometime soon.
I saw Princess. And I’m a boy. And I loved it. My cover was that I was taking my cousin my to see it, but I was more excited than she was. That old lady rules.
you rock little guy
Saw Invictus last night, seeing Princess tomorrow.
I think Saturday will see a BIG spike for Princess. I imagine most of the audience is probably either nostalgic adults and parents with their kids. Seeing as Friday was a non-holiday work day, I bet most families will see it on Saturday or Sunday.
And why give a specific total gross for Twilight but none of the other movies? I didn’t realize $260 million was a “landmark” gross.
im glad that disney showed that 2d movies are still popular. thought the frog princess was a cute movie. katie that reason why they are telling how much new moon has grossed, is because the movie has broken a lot of records. Its passed the 500 mill. mark worldwide.
$260 million and $500 worldwide is nothing for a major franchise film anymore. Let me know when it hits $300/$400 million in the U.S. and $900 million globally, then I might care.
And PatF was an adorable movie! I’m seeing it again Sunday.
I think Harry Potter beat that on the books alone… and the movies aren’t even finished yet! The last book is being broken into TWO films! (understandable, given how long it was).
i think its something when you consider this portion of the franchise cost a paltry $50 million to produce, and has hit over $500 mill. worldwide (that’s ten times its budget). something like Transformers 2, which cost $200 million to make but brought in $800 mill worldwide is a huge hit, but not as much profit for the company as New Moon.
I’m not defending new moon, just saying that its an event that can’t be ignored from a popularity/business standpoint.
I don’t understand why people brag about how cheap the movie was to make when it LOOKED LIKE CRAP. It had terrible effects and just looked cheap. If I wanted to brag about thrift, I’d use, say, District 9, which only cost about $30 million ($20 million LESS than New Moon) but had outstanding effects and makeup.
Instead of strutting about the business/profit standpoint, people might as well say, “Wow, Summit can churn out poorly made goo for next to nothing, and people who have no demands for technical quality at all will still see it!”
good for disney to make it big with a 2d movie. as for new moon, i dont think summit really cares that its in 4th place. that movie has made more money and has broken records all over. summit is laughing all the way to the bank.
Great to see 2D animation go #1. I do wish it had made a bit more, but it’s OK — it has the whole holidays to play. And people erupted into applause at the end.
ADDICTED TO THIS SONG:
I took my 7 year old twins to see it last night and we all LOVED it. My son ha
I took my twins to see it last night and we LOVED it! My son has autism so going to the actual theatre is a gamble but he was completely mesmerized and didn’t make a sound- a thumbs up from him, lol! It definitely deserves to join the canon of the glorious 90s Disney animation and Tiana is a modern day princess for ALL little girls to look up to! She is smart, beautiful, talented, and hard working and doesn’t need a prince to make her dreams come true!
It was really good and didn’t surprise me that it would do well. It was Cinderalla-esque, and I saw more adults like myself on Friday going to see it. It had so many positive messages that will appeal to all girls. Great animation and a great story. I would recommend it to anyone.