Summit Entertainment's tsunami survival saga "The Impossible" surged in its second week, taking in $138,750 from 15 theaters.
That's a 28 percent rise from last week, when it debuted in the same number of locations, and a solid per-screen average of $12,300.
The English-language film from Spain is based on a true story about a family’s fight to survive the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. It stars Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts, who received a Best Actress nomination recently from SAG.
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Summit will go nationwide with "The Impossible" this week. It already has taken in $52 million in Spain, the home of the real-life couple upon whom the story is based as well as director Juan Antonio Bayona (“The Orphanage”) and screenwriter Sergio Sanchez.
Two movies debuted in limited release this week.
Focus Features' "The Promised Land" opened on 25 screens and took in $190,150, a $7,606 per-screen average. Focus plans to expand the film, directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Matt Damon and John Krasinski, to 1,500 theaters next weekend.
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Sony Pictures Classics opened the Peter Jackson-produced documentary "West of Memphis" on five screens. It took in $13,856 for a $2,771 per-location average.
Several films prominent in the Oscar discussion turned in strong performances.
The Weinstein Company's "Silver Linings Playbook" expanded from 371 theaters to 745 and took in $4.1 million. That's an average of $5,517 per theaters, up from last week's $4,801 average on about half the screens, and raises the overall domestic total for "Playbook" to $27.3 million.
Kathryn Bigelow's saga about the hunt for Osama bin Laden grossed $315,000 from five locations in its second week for Sony, an average of $63,000. It's domestic gross stands at $1.3 million.
Sony Pictures Classics' "Amour" brought in $60,016 from three theaters in its second week, a $20,006 average that raised its overall total to $217,791.