Weekend Box Office: 'Snow White and the Huntsman' Surpasses Universal's Lowball Projections

The strong opening for “Snow White” is more impressive considering that no higher priced 3 D tickets were in the mix and the picture was not a sequel nor a franchise, and just a few months earlier another film was released that was also based on the same classic fable.

Relativity Media’s “Mirror Mirror,” starring Julia Roberts and Lily Collins, took a lighter, more comedic family approach to the fairy tale and opened with a modest $18.1 million, going on to collect $62.5 million domestically, and did better overseas with $97.9 million, for a worldwide total of $160.4 million.  But compared with “Snow White’s” reported budget of $170 million, the Tarsem helmed “Mirror” cost a relatively restrained $100 million to produce.

Internationally “Snow White” is in the early stages of its rollout and gleaned an estimated $39.3 million from 45 territories--the largest was the UK's $5.5 million--and was the number one film in 30 of those markets. The estimated worldwide cume is $95.6 million.

Looking down the road, “Snow White” should show some legs, although it generated a modest ‘B’ CinemaScore from moviegoers.  The audience was slightly more female (53%) and slightly older (52% were age 30 or more).  According to RottenTomatoes.com, a low 46% of critics gave the film a positive nod, not enough for a Fresh rating.

Next weekend shows promise: expectations are high for the opening of Fox’s “Prometheus” from director Ridley Scott, which also stars Theron, and for family audiences, Paramount’s “Madagascar 3” from DreamWorks.