Marvel's The Avengers broke virtually every box-office record known to Hollywood over the weekend, becoming the first film to surpass $200 million domestic on an opening weekend and hurtling toward $1 billion worldwide in what should be a matter of days. Consider the superhero gauntlet thrown down before The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises. Your Weekend Receipts (for what they're worth) are here.
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What a weekend for Dr. Seuss's The Lorax: The environmentally tinged adaptation became the latest of the beloved author's film spinoffs to capture the top box-office perch. Meanwhile, the raunchy Project X settled in quietly behind it, earning roughly a dollar per topless scene en route to second place. Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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Congratulations to Hollywood for taking back the weekend from pop stars extant, dead or otherwise and shattering the record for Valentine's Day weekend movie attendance. What a great time to be alive! Ahem. Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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Two supernatural thrillers joined a pair of spooky holdovers in the top five of this weekend's box office, where one of the world's biggest stars was no match for the low-budget telepathic shenanigans of Team Chronicle. And, er, what happened to Drew Barrymore? Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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Let's hear it for Gang Grey, which handily sprinted off with first place at the weekend box office while fellow newcomers One For the Money and Man on a Ledge settled a little more quietly into their own top-five niches. A couple of unremarkable holdovers fared not much better, but hey. At least now we can look forward to February! Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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It was a buoyant holiday frame for the last releases of 2011, with audiences turning out in droves (and likely family-loaded minivans) to boost just about every film in theaters. Biggest congrats are in order for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, which is indeed set to make in 17 days what Mission: Impossible III made in its entire theatrical run. And, look! A bunch more people caught the timely holiday spirit and bought a Zoo this week, along with a War Horse and, uh, Garry Marshall's New Year's Eve. Enjoy it while it lasts, Garry. Auld lang syne, 2011. Your holiday weekend receipts after the jump!
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Post-yuletide holiday crowds flocked to the same trio of sequels that dominated the Christmas box office -- Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked -- while Summit newcomer The Darkest Hour limped into theaters waaaay under the radar. Meanwhile, Tom Cruise will be ringing in the new year with a number 1 box office finish, made all the sweeter by projections that Ghost Protocol will overtake the $134 million domestic take of the series' last installment by Monday. Dive into your Friday Box Office!
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Sherlock Holmes may have won the weekend with a modest debut, but was it the real box office winner? Not with Tom Cruise and the Mission: Impossible gang around to flaunt their fab limited release per-screen average in everyone's faces, a precursor to next week's Christmastime blitz. And, yeah. The new Chipmunks is out. A moment of silence for all the poor souls who helped it debut in the number two slot. I'd wager even David Cross feels for you.
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Breaking Dawn sparkled to the top slot yet again on the quietest weekend of the season, but just take a gander at the healthy size of Shame's art house opening! Meanwhile, the latest offerings from Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne enjoyed a boost. But I've got to ask: What happened to the Muppets' mojo?
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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn might have held onto the #1 slot during the Thanksgiving frame, but holiday buzz lifted those plucky Muppets to a strong second place showing; with $24.7 million over three days, Jason Segel, Kermit, and Co. should ride the Rainbow Connection all the way to a very nice pile of green by weekend's end. Meanwhile, Happy Feet Two continues to slide and Aardman Animation's fellow wintry offering Arthur Christmas opened with a modest $4.5 million Friday. Martin Scorsese's 3-D fall family flick Hugo, on the other hand, enjoyed a strong debut on a fraction of the screens. Maybe audiences weren't quite ready to ring in the yuletide cheer?
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The Twilight Saga sparkled to another #1 opening, as if you had any doubt; it was just a matter of how many millions Breaking Dawn would rake in, after Friday's $72 million opening day. But while all the excitement over weddings, butter-colored honeymoons, and monster vampire babies couldn't quite help BD eclipse New Moon (groan), it still nudged out Pirates of the Caribbean: The One with the Kraken for the #5 biggest opening of all time. That's forever, baby. Let's get our imprinting on in today's Weekend Receipts.
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While it didn't quite slay Jack and Jill at the box office -- a more resounding spanking might've restored my faith in humanity, but many, many folks still came out for the Adam Sandler twinsies comedy -- Tarsem's fantasy actioner Immortals exceeded expectations on its way to a surprising $32 million number one opening, the best ever debut for studio Relativity Media. Also: Puss in Boots and Tower Heist continued to slide down the ranks, with J. Edgar making a decent go of things to round out the Top 5. Dive in for your Weekend Receipts!
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Hark, a new film hath unseated The Help for the #1 crown! All it took was Steven Soderbergh's hypochondria-inducing Contagion, a picture that will surely also boost worldwide sales of Purell during flu season. And while there's no love lost in seeing last week's Shark Night 3D and Apollo 18 drop precipitously down in the ranks, the heartstrings pull for Warrior, a finely acted MMA film that only got a fraction of the theater count of its competitors, and performed accordingly. But! At least it fared better than Bucky Larson...
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How appropriate: Your Labor Day holiday is on track to be owned by The Help, a movie about domestic workers. The female-driven, '60s-set lit adaptation has been dominating the charts for three weekends in a row, plowing through the end-of-summer competition left and right, and you know what? Not even sharks and astronauts and spies can slow down the Help train. The pic's on track for The Blind Side-esque awards buzz and an estimated $121M cume by the end of the four-day weekend. Is it crazy to imagine franchise potential here? Drop your The Help 2 sequel pitches below on your way to those Labor Day BBQs!
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New Yorkers may have been left unimpressed by the magnitude of Hurricane Irene (not so much folks in the less fortunate cities in her path, let's remember), but the much-hyped weather event left an indubitable mark elsewhere: all the way across the country in sunny Hollywood, where studio execs were likely cursing the name "Irene" as the box office tallies rolled in. With hundreds of theaters shut down across the East Coast due to hurricane panic and ticket sale losses estimated at $25 million, how much did new releases Colombiana, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, and Our Idiot Brother feel the impact of Irene?
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