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 For the second time since the Summer Movie Season officially kicked off on May 7, none of the new releases took the top spot at the box office for the weekend. We waited an extra day to bring you the results due to the extended four day Memorial Day weekend, and now they're in. Shrek Forever After, despite being the weakest entry in the series in terms of audience attendance held on to first place with no problem from either of the two new releases, Prince of Persia or Sex and the City 2.
Sex and the City 2 was off noticeably from the opening of the first film in the franchise. Two years ago, Sex 1 opened with more than $57 million, and it did it in a standard 3-day weekend. Dropping 33% from the original does not bode well for the health of this franchise given the lack of high profile competition for female-oriented films at the theaters. The three other chick-flicks in the top 10, Letters to Juliet, Just Wright, and Date Night have all been in theaters at least 2 weekends prior to this, so clearly the first Sex and the City film was an event that is not going to be repeated this time around. Prince of Persia's debut was solid, but not spectacular, but as we stated last week, adaptations of video games into movies hasn't become the bankable formula that, say, comic books have.
Among other disappointments, MacGruber had the steepest drop in the top 10 in its second week, off a full 53% from its meager opening take. It will likely top out at $10 million for its entire box office run, about half of what it needed to make in order to recover its $10 million budget as the share of the box office that the studio takes, the so-called "rental fee," is only about 55% of the entire box office tally.
Four major new releases crowd the cinemas next weekend, but none of them seem to be particularly pungent: Get Him to the Greek (starring Russell Brand and Jonah Hill), Killers (Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl), Marmaduke (Marmaduke), and Splice (Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley). If Shrek holds well, it could possibly land at the top of the heap once again because even if it fell 40% from its three day take this weekend, it would still rake in over $26 million, and we're not sensing the general audience is on pins and needles awaiting any of the four new movies for next week.
Here are the Domesitc Box Office estimates for the weekend of May 28-31:
|
Title |
Weekend Gross
(US+Canada)
|
change from
last week
|
Total Gross
|
| 1 |
Shrek Forever After
(DreamWorks SKG)
|
$55,725,000 |
-21.3% |
$145,475,000 |
| 2 |
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
(Disney)
|
$37,800,000 |
debut |
$37,800,000 |
| 3 |
Sex and the City 2
(Warner Bros. New Line Cinema)
|
$37,145,000 |
debut |
$37,145,000 |
| 4 |
Iron Man 2
(Paramount)
|
$20,600,000 |
-21.9% |
$279,176,000 |
| 5 |
Robin Hood (2010)
(Universal Pictures)
|
$13,600,000 |
-27.5% |
$86,319,000 |
| 6 |
Letters to Juliet
(Summit Entertainment)
|
$7,250,000 |
-19.5% |
$37,950,000 |
| 7 |
Just Wright
(Fox Searchlight Pictures)
|
$2,700,000 |
-37.1% |
$18,697,000 |
| 8 |
Date Night
(20th Century Fox)
|
$2,250,000 |
-22.8% |
$93,947,000 |
| 9 |
MacGruber
(Universal (Rogue Pictures))
|
$1,900,000 |
-53.0% |
$7,550,000 |
| 10 |
How to Train Your Dragon
(Dreamworks SKG)
|
$1,465,000 |
-22.9% |
$213,069,000 |
| 11 |
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
(Warner Bros. New Line Cinema)
|
$1,145,000 |
-50.7% |
$61,924,000 |
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