Weekend Box-Office: June 24-26, 2011

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Cars
2 keeps the Pixar streak alive…

Despite CARS 2 scoring a
thoroughly unimpressive
33% positive rating over on Rotten Tomatoes by film critics
from around the world, it seems as though audiences didn’t care
too much as they turned the film into the 12th Pixar movie
in a row — since 1995’s TOY STORY — to open in 1st place. The
film’s opening of $68M also seemed to slip right into the typical
Pixar opening pattern (see chart below), but most previous films
had received plenty of great "word of mouth" so we’re
going to have to wait and see if this one follows in those same
footsteps.

Jim Law and I discussed this
film in our "Summer
Preview" podcast a few weeks ago, and even then, we
agreed that CARS 2 appeared to be the first Pixar film that
seemed more of a "cash grab" than genuine storytelling
wanting to be told. Here’s where the CARS 2 opening weekend stacks
up against previous Pixar film openings, along with their domestic
totals…

1. TOY STORY 3: $110M
(total: $415M)
2. THE INCREDIBLES: $70M (total: $261M)
3. FINDING NEMO: $70M (total: $339M)
4. UP: $68M (total: $293M)
5. CARS 2: $68M
6. WALL-E: $63M (total: $223M)
7. MONSTERS INC: $62M (total: $255M)
8. CARS: $60M (total: $244M)
9. TOY STORY 2: $57M (total: $245M)
10. RATATOUILLE: $47M (total: $206M)
11. A BUG’S LIFE: $33M (total: $162M)
12: TOY STORY: $29M (total: 191M)

In the meantime, last weekend’s
#1 movie, GREEN LANTERN, dropped like a rock out of the sky,
losing 65% of its audience from the same period last week. The
film has now generated $89M in its first 10 days of release, but
may not break the $125M mark at this pace. The films which lost
the least amount of audience members since last weekend, continued
to be the same ones including BRIDESMAIDS which is now up to a
staggering $146M and Woody Allen’s MIDNIGHT IN PARIS which at $29M
is officially Allen’s highest-grossing movie since 1986’s HANNAH
AND HER SISTERS ($40M). Way to go, Woody!

The two films to get booted
from the top 10 in order to make room for the two new entries
included KUNG FU PANDA 2 ($153M), which was a lot less than its
predecessor which had generated $215M back in 2008, and something
called JUDY MOODY AND THE NOT BUMMER SUMMER ($13M).

Next week sees the release of
one of the most anticipated summer movies in TRANSFORMERS
3: DARK OF THE MOON (I always feel like saying DARK SIDE
OF THE MOON) which has apparently been generating some
surprisingly positive
buzz so far?? BTW, maybe I haven’t been paying as close
attention as I should to this film, but I didn’t realize that John
f*ckin’ Malkovich is in this one! Frances McDormand as well!! That
said, are you looking forward to seeing this movie or not really? VOTE
HERE!!!