As expected, Disney-Pixar's latest, Toy Story 3, grabbed the top spot with the second $100+ million dollar weekend of the summer after Iron Man 2.  Also as expected, the fact that Toy Story 3 played on thousands of 3-D screens led to Shrek Forever After taking a huge hit in its box office as Shrek was displaced on those screens by Woody and Buzz Lightyear.  Shrek was down 64.4% in its fifth weekend, which was the largest drop in the top 12.  At this rate, the so-called "final chapter" will likely not reach $250 million in domestic box office, making this installment by far the least attended in the franchise.  Looks like the big green guy will be going out with a whimper instead of a bang.

Jonah Hex, the other film that opened wide this weekend couldn't even begin with a bang and will likely disappear from theaters with most of the public never having known it was there in the first place.  Jonah shot itself in the foot with a dismal $5.3 million debut against an estimated $47 million production budget.  This will undoubtedly be the lowest grossing movie based on a DC Comics character since 1997's Steel (although that embarassment only grossed a total of $1.7 million at theaters during its entire run, which only lasted about 2 weeks).  Originally, Warner Bros. buried this movie in the August release month, but for some reason decided to switch it to mid-June perhaps as counterprogramming to the more family-oriented fare playing now.  They should have stuck to their original plan because now Jonah Hex has gotten lots of attention as being a high-profile bomb, which will severely damage its future DVD sales as well.

Among the holdovers, Prince of Persia had the smallest drop – only about 14% – in its fourth weekend, but it's still unlikely to crack the $100 million barrier domestically.  However, it still continues to perform exceptionally well overseas with more than 72% of its total box office coming from foreign territories.  Last week's champ, The Karate Kid, retreated over 46%, but still lifted its 10 day total to more than $107 million.  It's quite possible that, if future weekends show smaller drops, Jaden Smith could have a $200 million domestic blockbuster on his hands.

Toy Story 3 gave a big boost to the box office this weekend and made a significant gain over the same weekend last year.  It remains to be seen, however, whether this positive turnaround we've experienced for the last two weekends will continue.  This Friday's new releases are Knight and Day, the new Tom Cruise-Cameron Diaz action flick, and Grown Ups, the new comedy starring Adam Sandler and his buddies, Kevin James, David Spade, Chris Rock, and Rob Schneider.  Cruise has had a rough few years at the box office in the wake of his unfairly hammered couch-jumping appearance on Oprah, and the ads for Sandler's latest don't seem to promise the raunchy Hangover-style laughs that his core audience has come to expect.  Both flicks could open below expectations.

Here are the domestic box office actuals for the weekend of June 18-20, 2010: