You know something is wrong when the top film makes more money in its 3rd weekend than the rest of the new releases put together. Not just that but The Avengers could have made half the money it did on each weekend and still finish 1st.
The box office juggernaut that is The Avengers is still rolling over its competition left and right, this time banking $55.6 million, the 2nd best 3rd weekend of all time (behind only Avatar‘s $68.4 million). So currently the superhero epic has a total of $463.3 million in 18 days, making it already the 5th highest grosser of all time domestically (unadjusted for inflation). Next stop is Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace ($474.5 million) followed by The Dark Knight ($533.3 million). If not for last month’s Titanic 3D re-release, The Avengers might have had a chance at that one also, alas James Cameron seems to always be one step ahead (it’s like he has a damn crystal ball). While $600 million is doable for The Avengers, $658.5 million (Titanic) is a pipe dream. So the superhero team will have to settle for 3rd place on the all time chart domestically, definitely not a bad spot.
Battleship came in 2nd with only $25.5 million, a very disappointing gross for a film that cost Universal $200 million. After an equally underperforming John Carter in March, Taylor Kitsch seems to be on quite a roll this year. Anyway, while the film ain’t half bad and I’d definitely qualify it as a guilty pleasure (for me at least), this Battleship won’t sink anything else besides itself.
In 3rd place Sasha Baron Cohen shows as once again that when you start falling, there’s only one direction left and that’s down. Once upon a time the British comedian made a mockumentary called Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. I was not a fan of that movie but I can see why so many liked it. Borat opened with $26.4 million (in just 837 theaters) and went on to gross $128.5 million domestically. Then came Bruno and boy, what a drop. While the movie made its debut with a good $30.6 million, the final gross was $60 million. Now we have The Dictator, in this case a scripted feature (unlike Cohen’s previous efforts), opening with just $17.4 million. In 6 days the comedy has made $26.6 million and I’ll be extremely impressed if it can match Bruno‘s total domestic gross.
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’s Dark Shadows was 4th with $12.5 million and an unremarkable $50.7 million after 10 days.
Finally, rounding out the top 5 was probably the biggest bomb of them all, What to Expect When Your Expecting, with $10.5 million. Now granted, apparently this mess only cost $40 million but considering all the talent involved, you’d think more would go see it. Maybe, just maybe, people are starting to avoid crappy films when given better options (like The Avengers).
