Weekend Box Office

As America celebrates it's independence, the film industry celebrated its favorite Fourth of July tradition, seeing the latest, biggest offering from the Hollywood studio machine march its way to the top of the holiday box office.  Transformers: Dark of the Moon for this achievement, is now the top grossing film to open over the Independence Day weekend.  The top ten are:

1. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)- 97.5
2. Spider-man 2 (2004)- $88.1
3. Transformers (2007)- $70.5
4. War of the Worlds (2005)- $64.87
5. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)- 64.83
6. Hancock (2008)- $62.6
7. Superman Returns (2006)- $52.5
8. Men in Black II (2002)- $52.1
9. Men in Black (1997)- $51.0
10. Independence Day (1996)- $50.2

And so Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg and Paramount Pictures are a little bit richer, and the film adapted from silly toys in it's third outing boasted the highest grossing opening weekend of the year thus far.  The only caveat was that it slightly trailed the opening weekend gross of the second film, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen...that was likely to be slightly expected, considering that film, you know, was awful.  Dark of the Moon wasn't nearly as disliked, meaning that it might stick around for a little while, and since the 3-D was one of the films best selling points, it counts as a cold victory for Hollywood.  There were also a few other milestones this weekend.

1. Transformers: Dark of the Moon- $97.5 million\$162 million since Wednesday
2. Cars 2- $26.1 million\$117 million in two weeks.  The latest Pixar release dropped a striking 60% from weekend to weekend (it will look a little better once Monday grosses come in), and marks the steepest decline for a Pixar product.  We all knew this was a bad idea!
3. Bad Teacher- $14 million\$59 million in two weeks.
4. Larry Crowne- $13 million.  In it's opening outing, the Tom Hanks-Julia Roberts comedy failed.  After this, and the soft box office of their first film together-- Charlie Wilson's War (2007)-- I suppose the world just isn't into the both of them together.  Fortunately, this one only cost $30 million to make.
5. Super 8- $7.8 million\$108 million total.  The J.J. Abrams throwback may not have been the huge blockbuster that it's hype alluded to, but it's doing remarkably well for itself, easing just 35% in its fourth weekend.  This marks the second film produced by Steven Spielberg in the top five.
6. Monte Carlo- $7.4 million.
7. Green Lantern- $6.5 million\$102 million.  Down 63% in its third weekend, the Ryan Reynolds superhero movie has to be considered that top dud of the summer given its $200 million price tag.
8. Mr. Popper's Penguins- $5.4 million\$50 million to date.
9. Bridesmaids- $3.6 million\$153 million to date.  Over the weekend, Bridesmaids, the little engine that could this summer became the highest grossing film that Judd Apatow has ever been apart of, period.  The bridesmaid spot belongs to Knocked Up (2007) which made $148 million.
10. Midnight in Paris- $3.5 million\$33.7 million to date.

The other big news over the weekend was that Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides became the seventh highest grossing picture in history with a worldwide gross of $1.0 billion.  It's reasonably tepid domestic take of $234 million is kind of encouraging, but again it calls into question the real power of the international movie sales.  And when Part 5 is announced, we will all have our answer.  We can all at the very least take pride in the fact that adjusted for ticket inflation (3-D inflation as well) and overall movie attendance the third unnecessary Jack Sparrow tale would be way further down on the list...