Weekend Box-Office: June 3-5, 2011

X-Men:
First Class opens in 1st but…

With the tons of great reviews
still rolling in for X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (Rotten
Tomatoes has it 87%, while Movie
Fan Central reviews average it at an eerily similar 8.6/10), I
don’t think anyone was surprised to see the film finishing in the
#1 spot this weekend, but what may have surprised some was how
little it made. The film managed to generate $56M over its first
three days of release, which may seem like a lot of money
to everyone, but when you consider that the film cost $160M to
make, and that the previous two X-MEN movies opened with $85M
(WOLVERINE) and $102M (X-MEN: THE LAST STAND) respectively…it
had to be somewhat disappointing to Fox.

That said, nobody knows how the
film will hold up over the coming weeks and the rest of the
summer, so we’ll reserve final judgment until then, but according
to Fox, the film "achieved its goal" of opening at
around the same revenue mark as the original X-MEN film did back
in the year 2000 (that film opened with around $54M at the time),
and points out that it’s unfair to compare it to previous X-MEN
movies (except for the original) because it’s a new start and
there were no "names" in this film, unlike Hugh Jackman
starring in WOLVERINE. M’okay. X-MEN: FIRST CLASS also added about
$64M overseas.

Last weekend’s #1 movie, THE
HANGOVER 2, managed to stick around in 2nd place this weekend,
although it dropped quite a bit from last week, losing 62% of its
audience, but still powering on at $187M in total (it’s already
the 3rd highest grossing movie of the year!). Two films that
managed to break the $100M barrier this weekend including KUNG FU
PANDA 2 in only its second weekend of release and BRIDESMAIDS,
which continues to make major coin week-to-week, while still
hanging around in 5th place despite being released four weeks ago.
The film continues to have the lowest drops weekend-to-weekend,
with a miniscule 26% drop this weekend from last. 

FAST FIVE, 2011’s top grossing
movie, also managed to surpass the $200M mark, which is the first
time in the FAST & FURIOUS franchise history that a film does
so. So yeah…FAST SIX is on like Donkey Kong! That said, unless
something really bizarre happens in the coming weeks, it appears
as though the latest PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN flick will surpass
FAST FIVE as #1 movie of the year. It currently sits at $190M,
only $12M behind Diesel and gang. If you look at the worldwide
figures though, PIRATES is already crushing the boys in cars with
$791M in grosses around the world, while FAST FIVE is set at $570M
worldwide. Not too shabby for either film.

RIO was the only film to get
booted from the top 10 this week (at $136M in grosses, it
currently sits in 5th place on the 2011
top grossers list), while Woody Allen’s latest MIDNIGHT IN
PARIS is continuing to open wider and wider, while continuing to
make more and more money as well. At $7M in grosses, the film is
already the 4th highest grossing Woody Allen movie since 2001
(MATCH POINT and VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA both made $23M, while
SCOOP made $10M during that period).

Next weekend sees the release
of only one "big summer movie" and that one is
written/directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by this guy named
Steven Spielberg. The film is called SUPER
8 and our very own JimmyO already graced it with a 9/10
review, which seems to be in line with what most critics are
saying over on Rotten
Tomatoes as well (it currently sits at 85% positive rating).
Will you be checking our SUPER 8 yourself? VOTE
HERE!!!