The box office remains active as the second of the month’s trio of blockbuster third chapters hit screens with great success. Following two weeks of relatively non-competition for Spider-Man III, Dreamworks Shrek the Third raked in an ogre-sized lot of the green stuff. Aided by a (by today’s standard atypically) short running time of about an hour and a half, which allowed for another showing or two, Shrek the Third pulled in a monstrous $122 million this weekend, hoarding a huge 8,600 screens, averaging $30,000 at each of the 4,122 theaters it played. This was well ahead of the opening of Shrek II, which pulled in $108 million its first three days.
Unsurprisingly, this pushed Spider-Man III, in its third frame, down into second place. Still drawing a robust $28.5, its total dropped 51% from last week, as opposed to the over 60% drop the film saw from its first weekend to its second. Drawing about $6,600 per its 4,324 theaters, the web-slinger has apprehended about $292 million domestically so far, along with a heroic $465 million overseas, for a boggling total of nearly $750 million. While the billion dollar mark is probably out of reach, given the increased competition about to land, things are looking very rosy for Sony Picture’s profit statements this year.
After that, the drop-off is manifest. Number three picture 28 Months Later chomped on another $5.2, for a 48% drop-off from its first week, which is actually pretty good for a horror film. With the picture already in profit from its overseas take, its $18.6 million so far is pretty much gravy. Still, it’s clear the film will fall far short of the U.S. gross of the first film, 28 Days Later, which feasted on $45 million.
Low-budget teen suspenser Disturbia continues to do well, falling only 22% and drawing another $3.7 million, for a robust $71 million so far.
The more (supposedly) star-driven chick flick Georgia Rule, however, languished. Drawing $3.5 million in its second weekend, its total is an anemic $12.6 million. Fracture held well, grabbing another $2.5 million, and closing in on about $35 million. Surely a disappointment there.
The horrible looking Delta Farce plunged 48% this week from its already weak debut, making $1.8 million for a two week total of only $6 million. Obviously it is unlikely to hit even the $10 million mark at this point.
The Invisibles again failed to see audiences, making $1.3 million to boost its total to nearly $18m. Hot Fuzz drew the same, although it cleared the $20m mark this weekend.
Two films made $1.1m, with markedly different results. Art house flick Waitress draw that sum at only 116 theaters, for a yummy $9,800 per venue. Meanwhile, Nick Cage’s already barely remembered studio megabomb Next drew that sum towards a ghastly $16.6m total, and I don’t foresee it hitting much over $20m, if that.
Next week sees Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End hitting theaters for the Memorial Day weekend, which should put further pay to Spider-Man III, even with the longer weekend. Shrek the Third will presumably hold better, and animated movies tend to have longer legs than non-animated ones. The question for Pirates is can it beat Spider-Man III‘s huge openings and established itself as the year’s most popular film.
Another question is whether Pirates will get better reviews than the tepid marks given both the latest Spider-Man and Shrek entries. People are obviously in a movie-going mood right now, but obviously they are more likely to continue to hit theaters if the movies they see are actually good. The current films have already made their lucre, but if things don’t get better quality-wise, future releases might suffer.
