|
 As we predicted last week, this summer's box office will prove to be an underperformer overall. When the actuals for last weekend were announced on Monday afternoon, Iron Man 2 took in $128,122,480 rather than the $133,600,000 that was estimated on Sunday afternoon – a $5.5 million dollar difference. Still an impressive debut, but far short of what was needed to overthrow The Dark Knight, which Paramount and Marvel Studios clearly wanted to do given the enormous amount of screens it was released on.
In its second weekend, the superhero film fell almost 60%, which is typical for a summer blockbuster where audience attendance is always front-loaded, but not desirable, and does not bode well for any sort of records being broken. In contrast, 2008's The Dark Knight fell only 52.5% in weekend 2, while the first Iron Man (also released in Summer 2008) fared even better percentagewise, dropping only 48% in its second weekend.
Once again, both DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon and Fox's Date Night held on extremely well, having the smallest declines among the top 12 films. It is likely that Dragon will surpass the final domestic take of last year's Monsters vs. Aliens by next weekend even after equating ticket prices. It would need to make about another $31 million to surpass the attendance of 2008's Kung Fu Panda, so this milestone is a little harder to predict at this point.
Next weekend's wide releases are Shrek: The Final Chapter (aka Shrek Forever After) and the Saturday Night Live sketch spinoff, MacGruber. This being relentlessly promoted as being the final Shrek movie (even the title has been changed to hammer home that point), we'd expect at least a $130 million opening weekend and for Shrek to take the box office crown when the summer movie season is over after Labor Day.
Here are the estimates for Domestic Box Office for the weekend May 14-16, 2010:
|
Title |
Weekend Gross
(US+Canada)
|
change from
last week
|
Total Gross
|
| 1 |
Iron Man 2
(Paramount)
|
$53,000,000 |
-58.6% |
$212,160,000 |
| 2 |
Robin Hood (2010)
(Universal Pictures)
|
$37,114,000 |
debut |
$37,114,000 |
| 3 |
Letters to Juliet
(Summit Entertainment)
|
$13,750,000 |
debut |
$13,750,000 |
| 4 |
Just Wright
(Fox Searchlight Pictures)
|
$8,500,000 |
debut |
$8,500,000 |
| 5 |
How to Train Your Dragon
(Dreamworks SKG)
|
$5,120,000 |
-23.4% |
$207,764,000 |
| 6 |
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
(Warner Bros. New Line Cinema)
|
$4,700,000 |
-48.5% |
$56,109,000 |
| 7 |
Date Night
(20th Century Fox)
|
$4,000,000 |
-26.6% |
$86,699,000 |
| 8 |
The Back-Up Plan
(CBS Films)
|
$2,465,000 |
-51.0% |
$34,202,000 |
| 9 |
Furry Vengeance
(Summit Entertainment)
|
$2,300,000 |
-48.6% |
$15,147,000 |
| 10 |
Clash of the Titans (2010)
(Warner Bros.)
|
$1,255,000 |
-49.9% |
$160,151,000 |
| 11 |
Death at a Funeral (2010)
(Screen Gems)
|
$1,150,000 |
-50.2% |
$40,500,000 |
| 12 |
Babies
(Focus Features)
|
$1,004,000 |
-53.5% |
$3,900,000 |
|
Movies 
