Weekend Box-Office: May 21-23, 2010

WEEKEND BOX-OFFICE

Shrek
4 disappoints despite #1 finish?

Despite finishing atop the box-office charts this
past weekend, with $73M, the fourth installment of the SHREK
franchise managed to decrease its opening weekend total from $108M
for SHREK 2 and $121M for SHREK 3 (the original SHREK only opened
with $42M, but ended up making $267M). Granted, $73M is nothing to
sneeze at, but like most franchises in Hollywood, the idea is to
keep making more and more money, and in this case, it
appears as though the green ogre’s money-train might be ending
with this latest chapter.

It’s to note that this latest installment
apparently cost $165M to make, so the film really needs to keep
churning out the big bucks, in order to make that up, at least
domestically. Some say that the high
cost of movie tickets is also to blame for this drop for the
SHREK franchise.

The other "summer movie" to open this
past weekend was MACGRUBER, which apparently didn’t capture
anybody’s interest with a lowly $4M in its opening weekend.
Luckily for the SNL-ers behind it, the film apparently only cost
$10M to produce, so at least nobody is going to lose their shirt
over the disappointing flick. Oh and another movie simply entitled
KITES also opened in 10th place with about $1M. I hadn’t heard of
the film until a few minutes ago, but seeing as its also known as
BRETT RATNER PRESENTS KITES: THE REMIX, I’m not surprised that the
movie never crossed our radar.

As for the rest of the top 10, IRON MAN 2 remained
strong in 2nd place, with another $27M added to its total, which
is now over the $250M mark. If it continues on this pace, it may
beat the original film’s $318M finish. The 3 films to get booted
from the top 10 this week include THE BACK-UP PLAN ($36M), FURRY
VENGEANCE ($16M) and THE CLASH OF THE TITANS which is presently
the 4th
highest grossing movie of 2010 so far, with $161M.

Next week sees the release of 2 possible summer
blockbusters including the return of those sex-crazed ladies from
New York as SEX
AND THE CITY 2 hits the big screen, as well as the debut of
the latest attempt at a "videogame turned into a movie"
entitled PRINCE
OF PERSIA: SANDS OF TIME, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben
Kingsley and plenty of CGI. How much money do you think PRINCE OF
PERSIA will generate next weekend? VOTE
HERE!!!

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