 Contagion premiered on September 3, 2011 at the 68th Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, and a wider release followed on September 9. In the United States and Canada, Contagion was shown in 3,222 theaters, of which 254 screenings occurred at IMAX venues. Various American commercial analysts anticipated that the film would have ticket sales of between $ 20 million and $ 25 million during its opening weekend, which it did, grossing $ 8 million on its first day, and $ 23.1M for the entire weekend. Of that total, ten percent ($ 2.3M) of the gross came from IMAX screenings. By outgrossing competitor The Help ($ 8.7M), Contagion became the highest-grossing film of the week. Demographically, the opening audience was evenly divided among gender, according to Warner Bros., while eighty percent of spectators were of the age of 25 and over. Contagion did well the following weekend, generating a $ 14.5M box office, but came in second to the re-release of The Lion King (1994). The third week saw the box office drop by forty percent, for a total gross of $ 8.7M. By the fourth week, Contagion had dropped to ninth place at the box office with $ 5M, and the number of theaters narrowed to 2,744. The film completed its theatrical run on December 15, 2011, at which point its total domestic gross was $ 75.6M.
