Holiday Weekend Box Office: July 1 - 4
Mon, July 4, 2011 
Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:
1. Transformers: Dark of the Moon - $116.4 million
2. Cars 2 - $32 million
3. Bad Teacher - $17.6 million
4. Larry Crowne - $15.7 million
5. Super 8 - $9.5 million
6. Monte Carlo - $8.7 million
7. Green Lantern - $7.9 million
8. Mr. Popper's Penguins - $6.8 million
9. Bridesmaids - $4.4 million
10. Midnight in Paris - $4.3 million
Well, that should have come as a surprise to no one: Transformers: Dark of the Moon rocked the box office this Fourth of July weekend, earning an estimated $116.4 million over the four-day holiday weekend. That breaks the $88 million record previously held by Spiderman 2, and is currently the biggest opening weekend of the year so far, although with Harry Potter arriving in two weeks, they should just enjoy that title while it lasts.
But wait! There's more! Transformers also pulled the neat trick of opening last Tuesday night, so the movie has actually pulled in $175.6 million total so far. Which sounds awesome...except that the previous film had earned $214.9 million at this same point two years ago. So it's actually down, and by a lot. But it's still making a crapload of money - and more than 60% of ticket sales were for 3D - so it doesn't appear anyone is in panic just yet. And god help us, they'll probably be making another one of these movie soon enough.
In the theaters not featuring Autobots or Decepticons, things were slow. Cars 2 hit the brakes this weekend, dropping down 60% to earn just $32 million. Worldwide, the Mater-centric Pixar sequel has grossed $205.2 million, but the audience response seems to matching the poor critical reception it received. It's doing all right, but this one looks like it's headed to be Pixar's first dud. Oh well. At least the Toy Story short at the before the movie was funny.
This weekend's new release for grownups, Larry Crowne, was mostly ignored this weekend, earning just $15.7 million. Even Bad Teacher, which also had an unpleasant drop from last weekend, fared better with $17.6 million.
A couple of milestones to report from the past week: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides passed the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office, and Bridemaids pushed Knocked Up out of the way to become the highest-grossing R-rated comedy. The Kristen Wiig comedy, which is the only May release still in the top ten, has grossed $153 million.
Next weekend sees the releases of Horrible Bosses (which actually looks kinda funny) and Zookeeper, which just looks inexcusably bad. And it will probably make a fortune.
Reader Comments (2)
And so the transformers negativity continues, even in light of it's success. And yes the same "universally hated" film made over 200 million at this point. Which begs the question: how did it do that without Heath Ledger? I mean it's never been done before or again. For DOTM to fall short of a freakish feat only accomplished by two other films is hardly worth scoffing at. If anything it just makes ROTF look better. I thought the hate generated by ROTF would make this film bomb, generate freakishly strong numbers over a widely diffused opening? $160mill in five days is pretty much at the top of the charts.
And what's worse is it's world wide gross...
The fact that ROTF was so bad makes DOTM watchable and even entertaining at times. This is the reason audiences and fanboys have breathed a collective sigh of relief and forked over their money...especially for 3D tix.
But, as a stand alone movie it is a far cry from "great". Sloppy editing, cameo drenched to maintain audience interest, and still no emotional connection to the actual Transformer characters themselves.
Maybe next time.