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For the sixth consecutive day, Ice Age: Continental Drift finished in first place at the box office. We all know that its reign at the top of the charts has come to an end, but we will continue the pretense for another day or so. Yesterday’s gross of $5,105,534 represents a 25% decline from Tuesday to Wednesday. The fourth Ice Age movie has current domestic revenue of $63,802,996. It should enjoy one more day as theoretically the favorite film in North America before the crushing grip of reality catches up.

In case you are wondering why Ice Age 4 will be number one today, the reason is that The Dark Knight Rises will (presumably) not register box office for Thursday in order to maximize its opening weekend gross. The Batman franchise has established the opening weekend record on four different occasions with Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever and The Dark Knight. Today, movie theaters across North America are re-airing the first two Christopher Nolan Batman movies as a build-up to the midnight exhibitions of The Dark Knight Rises. His third Batman movie will make more by 8 a.m. tomorrow than the body of the top 10, maybe even all, in combination. All of this will not be reported however, so we will have a champion tomorrow.

On the whole, Ice Age: Continental Drift is doing better than average for an Ice Age movie. The first Ice Age had a grand total of $54.7 million after six days in release. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs had earned $73.3 million by this point, but it was effectively a five-day release. This goes back to the extra $25 million I mentioned on Tuesday. It is not a fair comparison to its successor, as counter-intuitive as that may sound. Ice Age: The Meltdown blows the curve with $78.9 million after six days. Ergo, $63.8 million is only third for the franchise but still okay, all things considered.

The prior comic book box office heavyweight, The Amazing Spider-Man finished in second place yet again. Its $4,021,753 on Wednesday is a decline of 26% from Tuesday. Before the Spider-Man reboot gets swallowed whole by Batman, let’s take this opportunity to compare it to the rest of the franchise. The Amazing Spider-Man has earned $214,314,784 after 17 days. Spider-Man 3, the previous worst performer for the franchise, had already totaled $282,379,655 by that point. Spider-Man 2’s total was similar at $284,637,833. And despite possessing the cheapest ticket prices, the original Spider-Man still set the pace with $285,573,668.

In terms of total domestic box office, Spider-Man earned 70.7% of its final revenue during its first 17 days in release. Spider-Man 2 had accumulated 76.2% of its take in the same time frame. And Spider-Man 3 was the most frontloaded with 83.9% of its gross earned in the first 17 days. From this data, we may extrapolate a landing spot range for The Amazing Spider-Man. Spider-Man legs are definitely off the table. While I doubt it matches Spider-Man 2, either, that would scale to box office of $281.2 million. The doomsday scenario of Spider-Man 3 would lead to a $255.4 million tally. I am splitting the difference right now with an expected domestic take of $268 million. Whether this total justifies the movie’s existence is up for debate.

Yesterday, I mentioned that every title in the top ten increased from the day before. Today, the opposite is true. Magic Mike held the best with a 15% drop from Tuesday to Wednesday. There was one milestone, though. Brave crossed the $200 million barrier at $201,217,358. In the process, it became the 10th of Pixar’s 13 releases to reach this mark. Only the original Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and Cars 2 failed. Brave should also surpass Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted by Sunday. The DreamWorks animated feature has earned $205,729,986 to date while earning a million less per weekday and significantly less than Brave over the weekends.

Combined revenue for the top ten yesterday was $18.2 million. This is a serious drop of 23% from Tuesday’s $23.5 million. Ordinarily, box office declines from Wednesday to Thursday, but we may have an exception today. Everything depends on how The Dark Knight Rises impacts receipts.