Shrek looks as surprised as we were with this weekend's box office results.  Although the fourth film in the franchise, Shrek Forever After (aka Shrek: The Final Chapter) easily took the top spot with an estimated domestic take of $71.3 million, it represents the lowest audience attendance in the series' history.  Perhaps it was the mixed reaction people had to the third film coupled with the higher prices for the 3D showings, but the crowds failed to materialize in the numbers that everyone was expecting.  It took in only 55% of what we were predicting in our last week's box office report.

The other new release, MacGruber, fared far worse, taking in only $4.1 million domestically – on the low side even for a Saturday Night Live spinoff feature film.  It would seem that what works for a one minute series of sketches does not translate into a 90-minute event.  Go figure.  The one-joke premise of the sketches and the fact that it's a parody of a television series, MacGyver, that most people under 25 have never actually seen sealed its fate.  Still, given that the film only cost $10 million to make, it should become profitable once all revenue streams are factored in such as DVD, pay-per-view, and cable.  We don't see this turning a profit based solely on box office, however, because a $10 million film would need to take in about $20 million at the box office just to break even, and that's simply not in the cards for MacGyver's less talented son.

Among recent debuts, once again Date Night had the smallest drop and cleared the $90 million dollar hurdle.  That last $10 million to make it an even $100 million might prove impossible, though.  Other romantic comedies aren't doing nearly as well.  The Back-Up Plan and Just Wright are proving to be misfires, while the jury is still out on Letters to Juliet.  On the action front, Robin Hood lost about half its audience, and will likely not reach even $120 million domestically.  However, the film is doing better overseas, particularly in Europe as expected.  With Shrek Forever After taking many of the 3D screens away from fellow DreamWorks film How to Train Your Dragon, Dragon suffered its biggest hit and fell an enormous 63% from last week.  This was the largest drop in the top 12. 

Next week's highlights include Jake Gyllenhaal in the video game epic, The Prince of Persia.  We're not quite sure what to make of this one as video game movies tend to be as iffy a proposition as a Saturday Night Live movie, but it and the Sex and the City sequel, another film that we feel is not a sure thing given that it takes place outside of the city and isn't quite the event that the first film was, are the only major releases next week.  As we said in our report a few weeks ago, this is shaping up to be a blah summer overall.

Here are the estimates for Domestic Box Office for the weekend May 21-23, 2010: