Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno topped the weekend box office with an estimated total of $30.4 million, but Heroes’ Hayden Panettiere couldn’t save I Love You Beth Cooper, which debuted in the dumpster, and the overall box office was down 5% from last year when Hellboy II opened, and 21% from 2007, when Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix bowed.
The R-Rated Bruno earned a solid $11,040 per location, but there are plenty of storm clouds on this mockumentary’s horizon. The squirm-inducing Austrian fashionista had a stellar $14.4 million debut on Friday, but dropped off a scary 39% on Saturday. Don’t be surprised if final box office figures, which will be released tomorrow, put Bruno under the $30 million mark. Though Bruno has found some favor with the critics (70% favorable on Rotten Tomatoes), audiences, which were 56% male and 54% over 25, gave the film a lousy CinemaScore grade of “C.”
Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): July 10-12, 2009
| Rank | Film | Weekend Gross | Screens | Avg./Screen |
| 1 | Bruno | $30,426,000 | 2,756 | $11,040 |
| 2 | Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs | $28,500,000 | 4,102 | $6,948 |
| 3 | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | $24,200,000 | 4,293 | $5,637 |
| 4 | Public Enemies | $14,111,000 | 3,336 | $4,230 |
| 5 | The Proposal | $10,507,000 | 3,158 | $3,327 |
| 6 | The Hangover | $9,930,000 | 3,002 | $3,308 |
| 7 | I Love You Beth Cooper | $5,000,000 | 1,858 | $2,691 |
| 8 | Up | $4,656,000 | 2,201 | $2,115 |
| 9 | My Sister's Keeper | $4,180,000 | 2,444 | $1,710 |
| 10 | The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 | $1,600,000 | 1,116 | $1,434 |
The overall weekend total would have been a lot worse save for strong performances by holdover moves, which are limiting the damage from the strike-caused lack of major new releases. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs dropped just 32% and finished a very strong second with an estimated $28.5 million. It now appears that the third Ice Age film will parlay its more expensive 3-D showings into a box office total that meets or exceeds the $195 million earned by its predecessor.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen continued to pad its lead as the #1 film of the year by adding an estimated $24.2 million and bringing its cumulative to $339.2 million. Michael Mann’s Pubic Enemies declined just 44% in its second weekend as it pulled in $14.1 million and finished in fourth place. Public Enemies’ 44% drop is certainly not bad for a sophomore session, but it was the steepest fall-off among the top 12 films, which demonstrates just how potent the top holdovers were. The Hangover, which finished sixth, dipped just 12%, while The Proposal, which came in fifth, fell only 18%. In its seventh weekend in theaters, Pixar’s Up (down just 28.6%) finished at #8, just behind I Love You Beth Cooper, while
The live action Blood: The Last Vampire, which is based on the Production I.G. anime, debuted in 20 theaters and earned $103,000 for a solid, but hardly spectacular $5,150 average.
The overall box office total should get a major boost next week with the debut of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
