Comic-book movies reigned at the box office for a third straight weekend as TMNT – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — opened to the tune of $25.45 million.

Zack Snyder’s 300, which had held the top spot the previous two weekends, slipped to second place, taking in $20.5 million. That brings its total to $162.4 million.

Box Office Prophets takes a closer look at TMNT‘s opening-weekend performance, comparing it to that of the 1990 version:

At first glance, this opening isn’t that far off the first movie’s $25.4 million debut, but you are at BOP, so let’s look closer. Adjusting the 1990 film to 2007 dollars changes the opening figure dramatically. Once we adjust for inflation, that $25.4 million total would turn into $36.3 million today, and trash the $25.5 million the new flick earned. In addition, the original Turtles were a phenomenon and very different from what we are seeing this weekend. The debut at the time was a March record, and for you trivia buffs out there, it knocked Pretty Woman out of top spot after Julia Roberts’ hooker-flick opened to number one the previous weekend. The 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stayed on top for four consecutive weekends and in the top two for seven weekends. It finished with over $135 million and crossed the $200 million mark internationally. The 2007 version will not come close to having the same kind of staying power than that the 1990 version did. This is a blip, not a phenomenon. For Warner Bros., it does the trick in the world of first-weekend box office.

However, BOP’s John Hamann writes, second-place 300 is a phenomenon. Need more proof? Just look at the movie’s performance overseas, where it held on to the top spot for its second consecutive weekend.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 6:16 am and is filed under Animation, Comic Books, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.