Peter Jacksons KING KONG captured $9.75M yesterday in its opening box office bow, ranking 21st on the all-time list of Wednesday openers. Falling well below industry expectations, the Universal Pictures release had a per-screen average of $2,735 on 3,567 screens. Overseas, however, KONG opened much stronger, pulling in $8M on 4,659 screens in 36 markets. Biggest openings were in Australia ($860,000), Germany ($664,000) and Jacksons New Zealand home ($297,000). Box office information obtained from boxofficemojo.com and VARIETY.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
