Weekend Box-Office: July 23-25, 2010

WEEKEND BOX-OFFICE

Inception
continues to roll on and on..

SALT was the only really big movie opening
this past weekend and despite a pretty good showing of $37M (far
from Angelina Jolie’s best opening, incidentally — she’s had 5
movies that have opened with more money than that in the past), it
couldn’t beat the gravy-train that is becoming INCEPTION, as
Christopher Nolan’s latest has now grossed close to $145M after
only 10 days of release. Despite many people going in for
"repeat viewings", I’m not sure if it will be able to
beat Nolan’s previous hit, THE DARK KNIGHT, which ended up with
$533M back in 2008. Only time will tell, but for now, it’s doing
pretty well (understatement of the year?).

It was also nice to see the top 3 movies come from
original ideas again this weekend, with DESPICABLE ME also
continuing to bring in the big bucks in 3rd place, while losing
only 25% of its audience from last weekend, and closing in on the
$200M mark pretty fast. The biggest drop-off of the weekend was
PREDATORS once again, losing 60% of its audience from last week,
and just barely hanging on in 10th place, with about $46M so far.

TOY STORY 3 continued its jolly way, adding
another $9M to its astounding total of $380M, which now ranks the
film as the 13th
highest-grossing movie of all-time! If it continues to bring
in some decent dollars in the next few weeks, it can easily slip
into the top 10, with the original SPIDER-MAN movie sitting in 9th
place with about $403M. If it can make another $60M before its run
in theaters ends, it would become the 5th highest grossing
movie of all-time. Wowza.

Overall, box-office revenues are at around $3
billion this summer, which is about 3% ahead of last summer’s
record pace, but if you take away the ticket price increases, the
actual attendance is down about 3%. In the meantime, films
like GROWN UPS and ECLIPSE keep bringing in the dollars, while the
mostly-panned THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE managed to drop only one
spot into 4th place from last weekend, while THE LAST AIRBENDER
should be out of the top 10 by next week, as it hovers around the
$125M mark.

The two films to get bounced from the top 10 this
week include one of the biggest hits/surprises of the summer, THE
KARATE KID ($171M) and one of the bigger disappointments of the
summer — at least in terms of box-office — KNIGHT & DAY
($73M). It’s to note that KID apparently only cost $40M to make,
while DAY cost around three times that amount.

Next weekend sees the release of three
not-so-major movies including Paul Rudd & Steve Carell in
their third feature together entitled DINNER
WITH SCHMUCKS, the sequel (aka "cash-grab") to the
latest kid’s movie hit called CATS
& DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE and that Disney kid
starring in something called CHARLIE
ST. CLOUD. In other words, unless SCHMUCKS turns into a major
hit, it’s possible that INCEPTION remain the #1 movie in the
country for 3 weeks in a row. Let’s see. In the meantime, what’s
your take on DINNER WITH SCHMUCKS? VOTE
HERE!!!

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