The toys were back in town, and audiences were back in theaters. Pixar Animation Studios broke the piggy bank again with Toy Story 3, which raked in $110.3 million over the weekend. Overall weekend business was up 32 percent over the same timeframe last year, and, with nearly $200 million, it was the industry's largest-grossing third weekend of June ever.
Pixar's track record extended to 11 consecutive blockbusters, reaffirming yet again the role that consistent, universal storytelling plays in branding and commercial success. Toy Story 3 delivered the studio's highest-grossing launch yet, surpassing The Incredibles' $70.5 million. However, in terms of estimated attendance, it was effectively around the same as Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc.. The first Toy Story took ten days to hit the same level of attendance as Toy Story 3 in three, while Toy Story 2 reached the same height in less than four days.
Toy Story 3 also generated the second biggest-grossing start ever for an animated feature, behind Shrek the Third's $121.6 million. The latter, though, had the advantage of opening in mid-May, when business is more concentrated on the weekends than at this time in June (when most kids are off from school). For the month of June, Toy Story 3 had the highest-grossing opening weekend on record, edging out Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (though that movie burnt off weekend demand with a Wednesday launch). On both fronts, Toy Story 3 would fall back a few places in terms of attendance.
Playing on approximately 7,500 screens at 4,028 locations, Toy Story 3 essentially matched Pixar's largest releases, though its showed on around 2,000 fewer screens than Shrek Forever After. According to distributor Walt Disney Pictures' exit polling, Toy Story 3's audience was 54 percent under 25 years old and evenly split between genders, while families (parents and their children) made up 67 percent. Disney pointed out that 40 percent of the non-family audience was aged 17-24, people who presumably grew up with Toy Story.
Toy Story 3 marked Pixar's second movie presented in 3D after Up, and it played on around 3,200 3D screens at 2,463 sites. 3D accounted for 60 percent of business (including 180 IMAX sites that made up eight percent). The 3D ticket price premium appears to have added more than $20 million to the weekend gross (though there is no data on how many people it might have deterred). As prominent as 3D appeared to be for Toy Story 3, it was relatively less prominent than for Shrek Forever After (61 percent opening share) and especially Alice in Wonderland (2010) (70 percent).
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2826&p=l.htm
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EXCELLENT start, hopefully it holds up due to fabulous word of mouth.
Unfortunately it couldn't beat Shrek 3 to get highest grossing start for animated movie though.
