Weekend Receipts: A Hangover For the History Books; Tree of Life Soars

They came, they saw, the conquered. Again. Todd Phillips, Warner Bros., and the team behind The Hangover Part II -- and all of Hollywood, in fact -- are enjoying a historic Memorial Day weekend at the box-office as moviegoers have made blockbusters of at least two franchises and bona-fide hits out of two art-house darlings. Your weekend receipts are here.

1. The Hangover Part II

Gross: $86,480,000 ($118,090,000)

Screens: 3,615 (PSA: $23,923)

Weeks: 1

And just like that, The Hangover Part II sweeps into the record books with the biggest opening weekend of any R-rated comedy ever. (The Matrix Reloaded retains the overall R-rated opening record at $91 million.) I wish I had more to add in terms of analysis, but really this just raises more questions than anyone can answer: What will the drop be like in week two? Does this guarantee a third franchise installment -- high budget and low standards be damned? Is Todd Phillips positioned to become the new Judd Apatow? Is that highly-contested face tattoo from both films really just a Maori symbol portending box-office fortune? The mind reels.

2. Kung Fu Panda 2

Gross: $48,000,000 (new)

Screens: 3,925 (PSA: $12,229)

Weeks: 1

Not quite historic, KFP2's opening nevertheless signifies the early summer hit DreamWorks Animation was counting on to keep pace with Pixar and the surging team at Blue Sky Studios (Rio). Performance could have been better were it not for the animated critter and 3-D glut preceding it, but it'll work, especially once the foreign numbers start rolling in.

3. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Gross: $39,321,000 ($152,916,000)

Screens: 4,164 (PSA: $9,443)

Weeks: 2 (change: -56.4%)

Don't let the precipitous Stateside drop in week two fool you; this thing is already past the half-billion mark worldwide. Which can mean only thing: Time to start the titling process for Pirates 5.

4. Bridesmaids

Gross: $16,373,000 ($84,980,000)

Screens: 2,958 (PSA: $5,535)

Weeks: 3 (change: -21.6%)

Speaking of sequel potential, this will have one. Considering the comedic botch job that The Hangover Part II was, though -- and the thematic/tonal debt Bridesmaids owes the original -- should we be scared?

5. Thor

Gross: $9,365,000 ($159,710,000)

Screens: 3,296 (PSA: $2,841)

Weeks: 4 (change: -39.4%)

Enh.

7. Midnight In Paris

Gross: $1,919,000 ($2,824,000)

Screens: 58 (PSA: $33,086)

Weeks: 2 (change: +220.4%)

As demoralizing as Hollywood's dumbed-down summer machine can be sometimes, seeing Woody Allen's late-career masterpiece in the top 10 is all the reassurance you need that hope is not lost. America still gets it.

16. The Tree of Life

Gross: $352,000 (new)

Screens: 4 (PSA: $88,000)

Weeks: 1

Fresh off its Palme d'Or win, Terrence Malick's epic metaphysical curio delivered big for Fox Searchlight. If it can keep up this pace as it expands in the weeks ahead, consider an Oscar run inevitable. We'll be talking about this one for a while.

[Numbers via Box Office Mojo]