Weekend Box-Office: August 12-14, 2011

Monkey
see, monkey do…

Despite some of the series’
best reviews, FINAL DESTINATION 5 wasn’t able to beat the
“monkey movie” this weekend as RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE
APES maintained the #1 spot on the charts for a second weekend in
a row. It was Disney’s cinematic interpretation of THE HELP that
actually managed to snag the #2 spot on the list (75% of audience
members were female, the rest were guys with their balls chopped
off apparently), with FINAL DESTINATION closing out the top 3 with
close to $19M. It was only the 3rd time all summer that a film was
able to maintain the #1 spot two weekends in a row (previous films
in that category were THOR and TRANSFORMERS 3).

The film that spent the past
two weekends in 2nd place, THE SMURFS, finally dropped to 4th
place this week, but at the same time, managed to move past the
$100M mark during its third week of release (it’s currently
sitting at $242M in worldwide grosses, hence the
announcement of a sequel earlier this week). In doing so, THE
SMURFS becomes the 20th film of the year to break
the $100M barrier. The 5 films to score more than $200M so far
this year are:

5. FAST FIVE ($210M)
4. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4 ($240M)
3. THE HANGOVER: PART 2 ($254M)
2. TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON ($347M)
1. HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS ($357M)

The other two new film releases
of the week didn’t fare as well, as 30 MINUTES OR LESS apparently
didn’t feature enough monkey-fare (their bad guys were dressed up
as monkeys, as opposed to being actual CGI monkeys) as it opened
with a weak $13M and a 5th place showing, which was a lot better
than GLEE: THE MOVIE which opened in 11th place with a little
under $6M.

Meanwhile, it looks like we can
officially pronounce COWBOYS & ALIENS as one of the summer’s
duds (at least, box-office wise) as the film has only managed to
score up $81M after 3 weeks of release (what’s more important in
that equation is that it apparently cost about $165M to make). At
the same time, CAPTAIN AMERICA becomes the 2nd highest grossing
“superhero movie” of the summer after THOR, as it closes
in on the $160M mark, after one full month of release.

1. THOR ($181M)
2. CAPTAIN AMERICA ($157M)
3. X-MEN: FIRST CLASS ($146M)
4. GREEN LANTERN ($115M)

The 3 movies to get booted from the top 10 this
weekend included HORRIBLE BOSSES ($110M), FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS
($53M) and TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON ($347M). For those few
Woody Allen fans still around, it’s interesting to note that his
latest (and greatest, box-office wise, at least) film entitled
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is still hanging around in the top 20 and will
be crossing the $50M barrier later this week. It will become the
first time that a Woody Allen movie has grossed over $50M in his
40+ year career in Hollywood.  

Next weekend sees the release of the
close-to-final movies of the summer including the latest Robert
Rodriguez SPY
KIDS movie, this one featuring a 4th-D element of
“smell-O-vision”, the romance film based on the
best-selling novel starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess
entitled ONE
DAY and two genre offerings including the return of CONAN
THE BARBARIAN and the re-imagining of FRIGHT
NIGHT starring Colin Farrell. So which film do you think
will finish atop the box-office charts next weekend? VOTE
HERE!!!