‘Enchanted’ continues to charm moviegoers

The musical, modern-day fairy tale “Enchanted” kept its spell on moviegoers, reaping $17 million in ticket sales to repeat atop the weekend box-office charts, distributor Walt Disney Co. said Sunday.

The family film held up fairly well during the typically sluggish post-Thanksgiving period, as expected, and it has generated an estimated $70.6 million through 12 days in the domestic market. “Enchanted,” starring Amy Adams, dropped 51% from its opening weekend, when results were goosed by the de facto Friday holiday.

“This bodes well for us throughout the Christmas period,” said Chuck Viane, Disney’s distribution president. “There is a ton of competition coming at us -- major titles like ‘I Am Legend,’ ‘Sweeney Todd’ and ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ -- but I don’t see much aimed at our core audience of families.”

Overall box-office receipts fell 8.2% from the comparable weekend in 2006, according to research firm Media by Numbers, as the industry’s post-summer slump continued. It was the fourth straight “down” weekend.

Year-to-date box-office revenue is still up 4.7% from 2006, thanks to a robust summer, but attendance is now virtually flat.

The family film “This Christmas” from Sony Pictures and the epic “Beowulf” from Paramount Pictures repeated at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively, with about $8 million each.

Only one new movie got a wide release this weekend -- a rarity in today’s crowded marketplace. The medical thriller “Awake,” from Weinstein Co. and distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., opened at the low end of analysts’ expectations with an estimated $6 million.

The R-rated picture, starring Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba, placed fourth for the weekend. Christensen plays a heart patient whose failed anesthesia leaves him alert but paralyzed during surgery, while Alba portrays his troubled wife.

MGM was hoping for at least a $6-million opening and apparently got it, if barely, said Clark Woods, the company’s domestic distribution president.

“This was the week you had to open this movie,” Woods said. “In a more competitive landscape maybe you wouldn’t achieve this goal.”

Although Christensen played Anakin Skywalker in the recent “Star Wars” movies and Alba achieved moderate commercial success in the “Fantastic Four” films and the comedy “Good Luck Chuck,” neither is a proven major box-office draw.

“Awake,” which was not screened in advance for critics, is getting predictably dismal notices, according to the review-tracking websites Rotten Tomatoes and MetaCritic.com. At the movie fan website IMDB, however, users have given the thriller respectable scores.

The debut feature from writer-director Joby Harold was produced by GreeneStreet Films, Deutsch/Open City Films and Weinstein Co. for $8.6 million.

Weinstein co-founder Harvey Weinstein said his firm would clear a profit on the movie from the combination of domestic grosses, foreign territory sales and expected DVD revenue.

The ensemble comedy-drama “This Christmas” is shaping up to be highly profitable for Sony and its Screen Gems division.

It was produced for $13 million and has tallied $37 million domestically through two weekends.

Robert Zemeckis’ big-budget, 3-D production of “Beowulf,” which cost $160 million, will need to continue performing well to end up in the black. The movie, which has hauled in $69 million domestically through three weekends, is off to a healthy start overseas with $75 million, according to its foreign distributor Warner Bros.

For Paramount, solid overseas results have eased the sting for two pictures that bombed domestically earlier in the year.

The Ben Stiller comedy “The Heartbreak Kid,” which came out in October and mustered only $37 million in the U.S. and Canada, has reached $72 million elsewhere. The Claire Danes-Michelle Pfeiffer fantasy film “Stardust,” which took in $38 million domestically, is up to $95 million abroad.

Three specialty pictures, meanwhile, garnered impressive results in the U.S. and Canada.

The Coen brothers’ crime drama “No Country for Old Men,” already a critics’ favorite, looks like it could become a breakout hit. Miramax Film Corp. expanded the Oscar contender to 995 theaters and it climbed back into the top 10 in its fourth weekend, lifting its total receipts to $23 million.

And two other warmly reviewed films got off to promising starts in limited release, although it remains to be seen whether they can reach wider audiences when they expand in the coming weeks.

Writer-director Tamara Jenkins’ comedy-drama “The Savages,” starring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman as siblings who come together to care for their ailing father, averaged $38,000 per theater at four locations in New York and Los Angeles, Fox Searchlight estimated.

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” a drama from director Julian Schnabel, averaged $25,000 at three theaters for Miramax.

After disappointing box-office results in October and November, Hollywood studios and the nation’s theater owners are looking forward to several high-profile releases this month.

The first comes Friday when New Line Cinema launches its costly fantasy epic “The Golden Compass,” whose cast includes Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. The studio tried to build buzz by holding “sneak preview” screenings Saturday night at 873 theaters and reported strong results, with more than half the showings sold out.

--

josh.friedman@latimes.com