Disney’s Bolt earned an estimated $27 million domestically over the weekend, but it wasn’t enough to drive a stake through the heart of a teen phenomenon. The vampire flick Twilight sucked a whopping $70 million out of moviegoers, easily claiming the top spot at the North American box office. Still, animation was well represented with two toons in the top five. DreamWorks Animation’s Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is still very much alive with $16 million for its fourth weekend, bringing its worldwide total to nearly $186 million.
The visual effects for Twilight were provided by CIS Vancouver, ILM, Lola Visual Effects and Rez-Illusion. The film’s success is a big feather in the cap of Summit Ent., an independent distributor that is also putting out Imagi’s upcoming CG-animated family flick, Astro Boy. The company has already announced that it has greenlit a Twilight sequel titled New Moon. The film will be based on the second novel in author Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series.
Bolt and Quantum of Solace ran a close race for second place, but the latest James Bond film seems to have won by a neck. Preliminary results have the action pic up by roughly $400,000, but the picture could change when the actuals come out later today. Quantum remains the top draw oversees and has raked in an estimated $525 million worldwide so far.
The Madagascar sequel dropped two notches to No. 4, followed by the universal comedy Role Models, which fills out the top five with approximately $7.2 million in its fifth week in theaters. Both Bolt and Madagascar should see a surge in ticket sales this week as kids get out of school for the Thanksgiving holiday.
