By Chris Kavan - 06/13/11 at 08:37 AM CT
After a somewhat underwhelming midnight debut of $1 million, there was a little concern that Super 8 would have a similar weekend debut.
Still, there was no cause for concern as J.J. Abrams masterfully channeled Steven Spielberg, leading Super 8 to a $37 million (or $38 including Thursday) top-spot opening. Although it wasn't quite as good as Cloverfield ($40.1 million ) it was able to beat out The Day the Earth Stood Still ($30.5 million), The Happening ($30.5 million) and Battle: Los Angeles ($35.6 million) in terms of debuts.
While is might not be quite the blockbuster numbers that an Abrams/Spielberg pairing would draw, for a completely original film with a young cast carrying the burden of the film, $38 million looks good. At just a $50 million budget, it should have no problem surpassing cost, even with marketing thrown in. I can only hope word of mouth gets out and gives this film legs.
Last week's champ, X-Men: First Class dropped to second with $25 million. The film managed to drop only 55%, which was the best holdover for any X-Men film since X-Men: United, even though the $98.5 million total still trailed in terms of grosses.
Two films joined the $200 million club over the weekend as well. The Hangover Part II became the top-grossing film of the year as the third-place film dropped 41% and brought in $18.5 million and now stands at $216.5 million. While it trails the Hangover, it has still easily doubled its budget, meaning we probably haven't seen the last of the wolf pack.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides also passed $200 million, taking in a fifth-place $10.8 million and ending up at $208.8 million. Most movies would be happy with that, but it was only below average for a Pirates film.
In fourth, Kung Fu Panda 2 lost just 30% of its audience and took in $16.6 million and now stands at just under $127 million. While it has managed to keep hold of more people in the same time period, grosses are well below the original Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar films.
It looks like Judy Moody will have a bummer of summer after all. Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer landed in 8th place with $6.3 million. In comparison, Ramona and Beezus took in $7.3 million in its opening. The audience was mostly under 12, female and whatever parents had to be dragged along.
Bridesmaids once again suffered the least week-to-week drop, losing just 15.7% of its audience. The little comedy that could took in another $10.1 million and now stands at just under $124 million, quadrupling its budget.
Paris continued to sizzle for Woody Allen. Midnight in Paris expanded nationwide and took in $6.1 million (nearly beating Judy Moody), which represented the highest-grossing single weekend in Allen's long career. It now stands at $14.2 million.
This Father's Day weekend will see the release of Ryan Reynolds as the Green Lantern while Jim Carrey gives us Mr. Popper's Penguins. We'll if Super 8 will be able to stand up and how Green Lantern compares to other super heroes.
