With the only new major box office contenders being an R-rated comedy and a bad-looking post-apocalyptic vampire western, ‘Thor’ held onto the #1 spot this weekend, outgrossing its nearest competitor by over $10 million.
In its second weekend, ‘Thor‘ dropped 47.5% and pulled in an additional $34.5 million. Considering that this number includes the loss of 3D screens (which has proven to have a heavy influence in box office totals), ‘Thor’ is doing just fine. Having a total domestic gross of $120 million after only ten days, ‘Thor’ is right on track to pass its $150 million budget.
It’s official, Kristen Wiig can write and carry a movie! Opening with a strong $24.4 million, ‘Bridesmaids‘ gave producer Judd Apatow his best opening since 2008’s ‘Step Brothers‘. Featuring a mostly-female cast and dealing with female-specific topics, ‘Bridesmaids’ didn’t appear as the type of film that would bring in a large male audience. But the mixture of the female element and disgusting, raunchy R-rated “guy humor” proved to be a brilliant blend. Expect more Kristen Wiig in very near future.
In its third weekend, ‘Fast Five‘ became the highest grossing film of the ‘Fast and the Furious’ franchise. It nabbed the #3 spot with $19.5 million. ‘Fast Five’ has now brought its domestic box office total to a whopping $167.8 million, far beyond its $125 million budget and far beyond expectations.
Despite having the advantage of 3D ticket prices, ‘Priest‘ debuted in the #4 spot with a disappointed $14.5 million. It would take a miracle to help ‘Priest’ match its $60 million budget during its theatrical run.
The four bigger limited release titles this weekend all underperformed predictions. The Will Ferrell dramedy ‘Everything Must Go‘ brought in $825,000 on 218 screens. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Natalie Portman’s ‘Hesher‘ made $127,000 on 40 screens. The dance flick ‘Go for It!‘ pulled in $110,00 on 218 screens, and ‘Skateland‘ made $5,165 on two screens.
Next weekend only features one major release, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’. There is no question as to where it will open on the box office list, but will the fourth of the franchise bring in enough dough to make it the biggest opening of 2011?
Top 10:
1. ‘Thor’ (Paramount) – $34.5 million
2. ‘Bridesmaids’ (Universal) – $24.4 million
3. ‘Fast Five’ (Universal) – $19.5 million
4. ‘Priest’ (Screen Gems) – $14.5 million
5. ‘Rio’ (Fox) – $8 million
6. ‘Jumping the Broom’ (TriStar) – $7.3 million
7. ‘Something Borrowed’ (Warner Bros.) – $7 million
8. ‘Water for Elephants’ (Fox) – $4.1 million
9. ‘Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family’ (Lionsgate) – $2.2 million
10. ‘Soul Surfer’ (TriStar) – $1.8 million
HuskerGuy
Glad to see Brides Maids do so well. I’m a big fan of Wiig and thought the movie was hilarious.
TJ Kats
Agreed Bridesmaids was very funny. Wasn’t expecting to laugh as much as I did.
Chad Lawless
Don’t you think that, with the advent of 3-D ticket prices especially, movies should base their popularity on number of tickets SOLD rather than “price” spent? I mean, sure, it’s easy to say that a $100 million dollar movie that doubled it’s money was popular, but what about a $100 million dollar movie that makes $175 million? Couldn’t it conceivably sold MORE tickets? Just an idea…..
PS: LOVED Thor! Thought they did a great job with it! Now I’m a little worried that Captain America might drop the ball….
Luke Hickman
I’ve been wishing that they would show both profit AND number of tickets sold ever since Avatar broke the record. I wanted to know how much of that gazillion dollars it made came from regular 2D prices, the upped 3D priced, and the redonkulous IMAX 3D prices. My bet is that it didn’t sell nearly as many tickets as other very successful films.
lordbowler
I concur, Thor was very well done. Chris Hemsworth did an excellent job. I think they could have spent more time making the romance be a little more believable.
All in all, the actors did a find job. Heimdall’s part, though small was cool. He was very believable. I would have liked more character development for the Warriors Three and Lady Sif. But, its such a complex world to introduce to the uninitiated that more would have confused too many. It just needed to whet our appetites for The Avengers, so later we can get a sequel that can build on this film.
Cannot wait until Captain America opens.
Luke Hickman
I feel that ‘Thor’ suffered from over-editing. I imagine Branagh made movie over two and a half hours long, but the studio made him edit it down. I am hoping for a Director’s Cut in the future (mind you, I did not say an “extended version”).
Chaz Dumbaugh
Thor was good, not great like Iron Man, but good, it suffered from too short of a run time IMO, it needed more time for his redemption and romance, 2-3 days max for him to figure all this out just wasnt believable even in that world, otherwise it was good stuff, great fights, FX, comedy was good and the characters were nicely performed, Hemsworth wasnt a total meathead 😉
Priest was another one of those, had a ton of potential but didnt provide enough of the goods, you would figure a post apocalyptic Vampire tale, with Matrix type action and a little bit of Western thrown in for good measure would make a really cool film, well it did but at 90 minutes it didnt do much else, nothing was fleshed out very well and today I just have a hard time really enjoying anything under 2 hours unless its a straight up plotless horror flick or something crazy like Crank, something like Priest should have had a lot more too it…..but I do have to say I thought Bettany and Urban did great jobs with what was there, loved their characters, but for most people its definitely a rental.
Good to see Fast Five still up there, so far its my favorite movie this year, had a total blast with that one, more so than Thor gave me….