Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

By Quinn Bender
movieset.com

The prehistoric, animated romp, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs has pried Transformers' stranglehold on the box office.  The extended holiday weekend numbers show that Twentieth Century Fox’s animated feature has edged out the mega-grossing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen by nearly $3-million, earning the number-one spot at the box office while grossing an estimated $13.8 million on Wednesday, in 3993 theaters.
 
“What a great start for the holiday. Ice Age continues to be a comedy for all audiences,” said Fox's domestic distribution president, Bruce Snyder.
 
But by no means does Snyder's optimisim indicate his rival, robot disaster movie is a rusted shell of it's former success.

Revenge of the Fallen sent shock waves through the industry with a gross of $109 million over its opening weekend, according to boxofficemojo.com.  Showing on a mind-boggling 10,000 screens at 4,234 theatres, the Transformers sequel claimed the biggest June opening weekend on record, as well as the highest-grossing non-holiday, non-Friday opening weekend. It was the second-largest five-day start of all time behind The Dark Knight's $203.8 million. To date, Revenge of the Fallen has grossed $475-million worldwide.

It is yet to be seen how Ice Age will compete on its own opening weekend - a coveted holiday weekend at that - in 4,099 theaters.