Weekend Box-Office: July 1-3, 2011

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Michael
Bay breaks more records…

Director Michael Bay and lead
Shia LaBeouf both promised that the 3rd installment of the
TRANSFORMERS franchise would be better than the 2nd one, and
according to most critics
and fans…it
is. That said, nobody knew for sure if that meant more "big
dollars", but apparently…it did! TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE
MOON broke the Independence Day Weekend opening record, set by
SPIDER-MAN 2 back in 2004 ($88M), by generating $97M over this
weekend. It also became the film with the 3rd largest global
opening of all-time, behind HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE
($394M) and SPIDER-MAN 3 ($382M), having generated $372M since it
opened earlier this week.

Needless to say, it also
becomes 2011’s biggest opening of the year, beating the latest
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN film which had opened with $90.2M earlier
this summer. And speaking of the PIRATES franchise, it too broke
through another impressive mark this past weekend, becoming only
the 8th film in the history of movie-making to surpass the $1 BILLION
mark, worldwide (surpassing THE DARK KNIGHT in 8th place, by the
way…sigh). Here’s that elite
list as it stands right now:

1. AVATAR: $2.78B
2. TITANIC: $1.84B
3. THE RETURN OF THE KING: $1.12B
4. POTC: DEAD MAN’S CHEST: 1.07B
5. TOY STORY 3: 1.06B
6. ALICE IN WONDERLAND: 1.02B
7. POTC: ON STRANGER TIDES: 1.01B
8. THE DARK KNIGHT: 1.00B
9. HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE: 0.97B
10. POTC: AT WORLD’S END: 0.96B

For someone like me, who’s been
a fan of Johnny Depp since his early days with films like EDWARD
SCISSORHANDS, DONNIE BRASCO, SLEEPY HOLLOW, ED WOOD and others,
it’s extremely bizarre to see him in 4 of the 10 highest-grossing
movies of all-time! Who would have thought that a few years ago!
And speaking of which, if someone can explain how the putrid ALICE
IN WONDERLAND made so much money worldwide (I realize I keep
harping on this, but it amazes me!), let me know in the STRIKE
BACKs.

BTW, for those scoring at home,
TRANSFORMERS 3’s numbers are actually running below those
from TRANSFORMERS 2 a few years ago, as that film had made $200.1M
in its first 5 days of release, while the latest installment has
made only $162M, which still places it in 9th place
on the all-time
5-day opening list (TRANSFORMERS 2 sits in second place on
that list,
behind THE DARK KNIGHT’s $203M).

What might be even more interesting to a lot of
our readers in this weekend’s box-office charts is the 62% drop by
a Pixar movie!!! That’s right, last week’s #1 movie, CARS 2, lost
62% of its audience from last weekend and in turn, became the
worst drop by a Pixar movie in its 2nd weekend of release of
all-time! We hope that this lets Disney/Pixar know that
audiences expect more from them…not just obvious money-grabs for
merchandising purposes.

The Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts movie, LARRY CROWNE,
that I had barely heard about — even though I run a movie
fansite! — opened in a disappointing 4th place with only
$13M, below BAD TEACHER which made $14M in its 2nd week of
release. Some are saying that the film only cost $30M, so it’ll
definitely make its money back, but I’m not sure the studio was
thinking about just "making its money back" when it
decided to release it over this big holiday weekend while casting
two of the biggest "movie stars" of their generation as
its leads. Maybe those two shouldn’t stay out of the limelight so
long…

As for GREEN LANTERN, it’s made $102M since its
release three weeks ago, which adds up to about the same amount
that TRANSFORMERS 3 made over the last three days alone! I think
that says it all in terms of the film’s acceptance among
mainstream audiences. The three films to get booted from the top
10 this weekend included X-MEN: FIRST CLASS ($139M), THE HANGOVER:
PART II ($248M) and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES
($234M), three
of the most successful summer films so far.

Oh and at $153M, BRIDESMAIDS
has now officially become producer Judd Apatow’s highest-grossing
movie ever! That beats films like PINEAPPLE EXPRESS ($87M),
GET HIM TO THE GREEK ($60M), STEP BROTHERS ($100M), FORGETTING
SARAH MARSHALL ($63M), SUPERBAD ($121M), THE 40-YEAR OLD VIRGIN
($109M), TALLADEGA NIGHTS ($148M) and ANCHORMAN ($85M). Congrats
to Judd and all the lovely ladies (and men) that made this movie
what it has now become.

Next week sees the release of
two medium-sized "summer releases" including HORRIBLE
BOSSES starring everyone and your uncle as well as Colin
Farrell, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey and many others, as well
as something called ZOOKEEPER
starring Sylvester Stallone, Adam Sandler, Cher, Nick Nolte, Judd
Apatow (he’s everywhere!), Jon Favreau, Maya Rudolph, Don Rickles
and many other…voices! (that’s right folks, those actors are
simply the "voices" of the many animals in the film) The
movie actually stars Kevin James and Rosario Dawson in human form.
Have a blast. In the meantime, let us know which of the
TRANSFORMERS movies was your favorite: VOTE
HERE!!!