By Chris Kavan - 06/11/12 at 12:51 AM CT
Families were obviously in the mood to go out, as Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted topped Prometheus for the weekend and finally helped Hollywood to a win, a first since May.
With $60.35 million, Madagascar 3 kept up the trend of Madagascar ($61 million) and Madagascar 2 ($63.1 million) and bucked the trend of under-performing family-friendly sequels (like last year's Kung Fu Panda 2 and Happy Feet 2). The movie managed the 4th-best opening of the year and 7th-highest June debut on record. It's been over three months since The Lorax hit, and families were itching to get back out there - the film earned an "A" cinemascore and 3D helped it out with 45% of the grosses.
Coming in second, Ridley Scott's enigmatic Prometheus managed $50 million. While it may not have managed to open at number one, it still managed to be the 4th-highest grossing film out of any film opening in second place. It was easily the top film in the Alien franchise and came in behind only Hannibal ($58 million) as Scott's highest-grossing film. It also ranked as the 12th-best opening for any R-rated film. The only was to judge its ultimate success will be how it holds up over the next few weeks.
Last weeks top film, Snow White and the Huntsman, took a pretty big 59% hit, dropping to third with $23 million for a $98.5 million total. While it won't have any trouble topping the $100 million mark over the next few days, hitting its $170 million total (at least domestically) won't happen. Luckily a robust international box office means we'll most likely be seeing a sequel (though I have no idea where the story goes from here).
Men in Black III took the fourth place spot with $13.5 million, off about 52% from last week. The film has brought in $135.5 million since opening but it still trailed Men in Black II through the same period and has little chance of reaching the $190.4 million total that film brought in back in '02.
The Avengers rounded out the top five with $10.8 million, down about 47% from last weekend. The super heroes have brought in $571.8 million and, if it can hold on to a decent amount of its audience for the next few weeks, it should top off somewhere around the $600 million mark.
Speaking of milestones, despite dropping out of the top 10, The Hunger Games brought in $1.05 million and crossed the $400 million mark (the 10th film in history to reach that mark) to settle at $400.2 million.
Also breaking into the top 10, Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom added 80 screens and added $1.5 million to its total and now stands at $3.75 million and the week's best $16,448 per theater average.
Next week Tom Cruise, Julianne Hough, Alec Baldwin, Diego Boneta and Russell Brand make beautiful 80s music together in Rock of Ages while Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg and Leighton Meester come together for That's My Boy. We'll see whether musicals or comedy can stand against families and sci-fi.
