Weekend Box-Office: June 17-19, 2011

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Green
Lantern slips into 1st place

Despite scathing
reviews and a supposedly massive budget (rumors report
a $200M production budget and a $125M marketing budget — although
the studio denies these figures), GREEN LANTERN did manage to nab
the #1 spot in its first weekend of release with close to $53M in
receipts. The film becomes the lowest superhero movie
opening of the summer (THOR – $65M, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS – $55M) and
might not even hit $100M when all is said and done. Generally,
films pick up their business from Friday to Saturday on
opening weekends, but in the case of GREEN LANTERN, its figures
actually dropped by 22% from Friday to Saturday, which is a sign
that people aren’t recommending the film to one another.

Jim Carrey and his penguins
didn’t fare any better with a 3rd place opening and only $18M in
receipts. That film wasn’t
as badly maligned by critics, but obviously it didn’t
"connect" with enough families to rake in the big bucks
like most summer family movies. Fox’s "everybody loves
penguins" theory might not have been enough to carry this
film to the bigger dollars.

Last week’s #1 movie, SUPER 8,
managed to stick around in second place this weekend, losing only
40% of its audience and raising its total to $73M after only 10
days of release. X-MEN: FIRST CLASS dropped from 2nd to 4th place
this week, but still managed to raise its domestic total to $120M
since its release. The film that I’m more surprised about is KUNG
FU PANDA 2, even though it seems to be making decent money (it’s
made $143M since its release 4 weeks ago), but now sits in 6th
place with CARS 2 opening next weekend. It certainly doesn’t look
as though it will beat its predecessor’s $215M total when its
theatrical run is complete.

In the meantime, THE HANGOVER,
PART II, which opened over the same weekend as KUNG FU PANDA 2,
has now generated more than $232M, which only pads its lead over
the latest PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN flick, as the #1
movie of 2011 so far. For those keeping track at home, the
original HANGOVER film made $277M back in 2009. So even though the
sequel may not beat that number this time around, it certainly
will get pretty close, as it still sat in 5th place this weekend,
with another $10M added to its total.

BRIDESMAIDS continues to be nobody’s
bridesmaid this summer, as its continues to impress in 7th
place after six weeks of release. The film, which apparently only
cost $32M to make, has made over $136M so far and doesn’t seem to
be going away anytime soon. Finally, we can’t discuss the weekend
figures without, once again, mentioning how Woody Allen’s latest
movie actually has "legs" at the box-office, losing only
10% of its audience from last weekend, and now closing in on the
$22M mark. It’s to note that the last Allen movie to make more
than $23M was HANNAH AND HER SISTERS back in 1986!!! (it
grossed $40M back then) The two films to get booted from the top
10 this weekend include FAST FIVE ($207) and THOR ($176M). The
films respectively sit in 3rd and 4th place on the 2011
top-grossing movies list.

Next weekend sees the release
of two very different summer blockbuster movies with CARS
2 targeting the families/children in the audience, while
Cameron Diaz’s BAD
TEACHER focuses on the R-rated comedy crowd. When the
original CARS was released back in 2006, it opened with $60M and
ended up making $244M overall. So how much do you think CARS 2
will open with next weekend? VOTE
HERE!!!