Weekend Box-Office: June 15-17, 2012

Madagascar 3 is still the king of the jungle!

For its second weekend in theaters, MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE’S MOST WANTED faced a pair of high-profile challengers, but Ben Stiller’s lion and his animal buddies were more than hungry enough to chomp the box office.

The Dreamworks CG flick placed #1 again, swallowing another $35.5 million and bringing its 10-day total to $120.4 million — plus an additional $157M from overseas crowds. Probably safe to assume we’ll see those digital beasts roam to a new destination for a fourth MADAGASCAR adventure.

Meanwhile in deep space, Ridley Scott’s ALIEN-related thing PROMETHEUS landed again in second place, but at a 60% drop from last week with $20.2 million. There was a lot of excitment before it arrived, but it doesn’t seem like word-of-mouth is going to give it much summer propulsion (it ranked #3 on last week’s JoBlo.com poll of most disappointing movies so far this summer).

Still, PROMETHEUS is destined to travel past the $100M domestic mark, and has already gathered $128.6M more internationally. It’s also now the highest-grossing movie in the entire ALIEN franchise (but only fifth if you adjust for inflation, in which case Scott’s own first movie takes the top.)

As for the newcomers, ROCK OF AGES sang to half-empty stadiums with just $15 million despite A-lister Tom Cruise rocking the hair extensions and 80s nostalgia. Warner Bros. was obviously hoping to replicate the success of another popular Broadway musical brought to the big screen, 2008’s MAMMA MIA!, which made $144M in the US and a stunning $609M worldwide total. But it’s clearly not easy to sell 80s nostalgia to today’s young moviegoing generation that was fortunate enough to be born after glam bands, parachute pants and Members Only jackets were fashionable.

Is Adam Sandler’s audience finally abandoning him? His new R-rated offering THAT’S MY BOY only made $13 million for a fifth place opening — that’s barely half of what his last heinous-looking “comedy” JACK AND JILL opened to in November. No wonder he’s currently working on a sequel to GROWN UPS, his biggest movie since BIG DADDY. Co-star Andy Samberg is probably already calling Lorne Michaels looking for his SNL job back…

On the rest of the chart, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN were sandwiched between the new entries (it’s nearing $250M worldwide), and MEN IN BLACK III and THE AVENGERS are still scraping up some millions, with the latter edging toward an inevitable $600M mark. Pretty much every movie that doesn’t have Marvel superheroes is getting smacked around this summer, at least in North America (although some are making up for it by drawing big crowds in other parts of the world).

There’s still plenty of interest in Wes Anderson’s MOONRISE KINGDOM — audiences are tracking it down on one of the mere 178 locations where it’s playing, and again it’s got the highest per-screen average in the Top 10. BATTLESHIP and THE DICTATOR dropped out of sight this week, while THE HUNGER GAMES hung in there long enough to finally cross the $400M mark domestically.

Next weekend brings the presidential action of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER, going against the redheaded fury of Pixar’s BRAVE and Steve Carell’s apocalyptic romcom SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD. Are you interested in seeing Pixar’s BRAVE next weekend? VOTE HERE!