Box Office: ‘Snow White and The Huntsman’ is the Fairest of Them All with $56.3 Million

Universal bounced back from the Battleship debacle with a surprisingly strong opening weekend from Snow White and the Huntsman. The Rupert Sanders dark take on the classic fairy tale managed an estimated $56.3 million despite lukewarm pre-release tracking which pointed to something closer to $45 million.

Those who saw the movie gave the film an average CinemaScore of “B” while the studio reports that 53% of the audience was female and  52% of that audience were age 30 and older. Positive word-of-mouth will likely be moderated by a mixed 46% Rotten Tomatoes score as critics praised the film’s stunning visuals but deplored its uneven narrative.

Nonetheless, this is welcome news for the studio, which spent $170 million to produce the film and it bodes well for Kristen Stewart’s career who had yet to appear in a major production outside of the meek Twilight saga.

Meanwhile, Men in Black 3 slid to second place, dropping only 46% from last weekend with an estimated $29.3 million, down just 46.3% from last week’s opening frame. The movie has now tallied over $112 million in 10 days. In third place, The Avengers hit a major milestone by becoming the third highest grossing film of all-time, passing the last Harry Potter installment and holding just behind James Cameron’s Avatar and Titanic.

Next week, Ridley Scott’s much anticipated science fiction film Prometheus will debut in the US. The film already launched in 15 foreign markets, collecting an impressive $35 million.

Have you seen Snow White and the Huntsman? Let us know what you thought!