CinemaNerdz

Weekend Box-Office: X-Men: First Class Earning Top Marks

Seth Paul

It’s the post-Memorial Day crunch, and boy, are the top earners from last week mostly feeling the burn. To begin, X-Men: First Class took the weekend’s top spot with $56 million. Despite glowing reviews from critics and theater-goers alike, this top spot is actually weak earnings for the X-Men franchise; accounting for inflation, it made less money in its opening weekend than the original X-Men did in 2000, which makes it ranked fifth in opening weekends out of the five films. This somewhat shaky start, however, is balanced by the major drop of a big winner last week, The Hangover Part II, which dropped to a “mere” $32.4 million…which isn’t too bad, considering the $80-million film has earned scathing reviews AND $186 million domestically in its second week. Kung Fu Panda 2 didn’t drop quite so precipitously, but still lost quite a bit, placing third at $24.3 million. However, it has earned $100 million domestically, making it one of six films on the list to do so.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides continues to fall, but even with only $18 million for the weekend it has made $190 million domestically and may well be one of the biggest moneymakers of the year, with nearly $800 million so far in worldwide gross. This, in the same summer as sixth-place contender Thor ($4.2 million), which has made over $420 million worldwide; and Fast Five (in seventh with $3.2 million), which has made over $560 million, a whopping $200 million of it in the United States. Bridesmaids hasn’t done too poorly, either; the surprise comedy hit made $12.1 million and joins the $100 million club in week number four.

Meanwhile, Woody Allen’s romantic comedy opens to even wider release in its third week, making $2.9 million and picking up a few new venues. It has a ways to go to break even, but the slow start certainly seems to have worked for The King’s Speech. And in the final spots once again, Jumping the Broom and Something Borrowed are still neck and neck, throttling every last dollar they can before dropping out of the Top 10. Not even breaking $1 million for the weekend apiece, Broom still manages to one-up Borrowed with weekend profits ($865k to $835k) while still making less overall ($35.9 million to $36.6 million). Still, perhaps it’s time for these two films to start seeing other people; ever since they debuted in theaters five weeks ago, the two films have been at each other’s throats, always appearing in the same order and not once letting a single film come between them.

Weekend Box-Office (June 3 – June 5)

  1. X-Men: First Class…$56 million
  2. The Hangover Part II…$32.4 million
  3. Kung Fu Panda 2…$24.3 million
  4. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides…$18 million
  5. Bridesmaids…$12.1 million
  6. Thor…$4.2 million
  7. Fast Five…$3.2 million
  8. Midnight in Paris…$2.9 million
  9. Jumping the Broom…$865k
  10. Something Borrowed…$835k

Seth Paul

When not failing to write novels and screenplays, box-office guru Seth writes humorous comedy tracks for films under the name "The One Man Band" that can be found at Rifftrax.com. Although, he has recently succeeded in writing the novella "Jack Alan and the Case of the Not-Exactly Rocket Scientists," available as an eBook on Amazon. He is also the English voice of Zak in "Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space."
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