There was a bit of comment over the weeked about how Cars 2 was going to be Pixar’s first ‘rotten’ movie over at review aggregator RottenTomatoes.com (it currently stands at 33%, meaning only a third of reviews were good). However it doesn’t seem to have affected the box office too much, with the movie opening in the US to $68.0 million, which may be a little behind the likes of Up and Finding Nemo, but not by much (although it was way off Toy Story 3’s massive $110 million debut). It also outpaced its predecessor, as Cars grossed only $60 million in its first weekend.
It was a decent opening and ahead of what many had predicted, but doesn’t suggest the movie will be a runaway hit (however, as the film is at least partially an exercise in generating merchandising revenue, it should do well for the – Cars is, after all, Disney’s biggest franchise on that front, having sold over $10 billion in merch since the first film came out). it also only made 40% of its gross on 3D screens, signalling a further slowdown for the format. Whether that’s because audiences have either tired of the extra dimension, or just the extra price of the ticket isn’t certain, but it certainly seems the US is becoming less enamoured with 3D, even while it still bouys up the coffers massively in other countries.
Bad Teacher came out as counter-programming to Cars, for those who wanted something a bit more grown up, and it has to be said it did pretty well, making $31 million out of the gate. That’s not a bad total for a gross-out comedy and more than many expected.
And we’ve been saying it was likely to happen, and over the past week it has, with Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris becoming the director’s highest grossing movies in 25 years – since Hannah And Her Sisters. Its gross now stands at $28.5 million. As its attendance is holding up very well, it actually has a chance of overtaking Hannah’s $40 million as well, to become Woody’s highest grossing flick ever (although of course, it took a lot more tickets to make that amount of money back then).
Take a look below for the US box office top 10 for the weekend of June 24th-26th.
Rank | Title | Weekend Gross (millions) | Total Gross to date (millions) |
1 | Cars 2 | $68.0 | $68.0 |
2 | Bad Teacher | $31.0 | $31.0 |
3 | Green Lantern | $18.3 | $89.3 |
4 | Super 8 | $12.1 | $95.1 |
5 | Mr. Popper’s Penguins | $10.3 | $39.4 |
6 | X-Men: First Class | $6.6 | $132.8 |
7 | The Hangover Part II | $5.8 | $243.9 |
8 | Bridesmaids | $5.3 | $146.6 |
9 | Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides | $4.7 | $229.0 |
10 | Midnight In Paris | $4.4 | $28.5 |