Pixar’s Cars 2 overcame bad reviews and lowered expectations brought on by poor tracking numbers to easily win the weekend box office crown as it lapped the field with an estimated $68 million total that helped Hollywood score a rare victory as the overall box office ticked up 9% over the same frame in 2010 when Toy Story 3 ruled for a second straight week.  Sony’s raunchy “R” rated comedy Bad Teacher also outperformed expectations as the Cameron Diaz vehicle earned an estimated $31 million.  Warner Bros.’ pricy Green Lantern dropped nearly 66%, but still managed to add an additional $18.3 million to its total.

 

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): June 24 - 26, 2011
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./ Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	Cars 2	$68,000,000	4,115	$16,525	$68,000,000	1
2	Bad Teacher	$31,000,000	3,049	$10,167	$31,000,000	1
3	Green Lantern	$18,350,000	3,816	$4,809	$89,311,000	2
4	Super 8	$12,100,000	3,424	$3,534	$95,186,000	3
5	Mr. Popper's Penguins	$10,300,000	3,342	$3,082	$39,448,000	2
6	X-Men: First Class	$6,600,000	2,633	$2,507	$132,815,000	4
7	The Hangover Part II	$5,865,000	2,755	$2,129	$243,943,000	5
8	Bridesmaids	$5,372,000	2,031	$2,645	$146,659,000	7
9	Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides	$4,702,000	2,244	$2,095	$229,060,000	6
10	Midnight in Paris	$4,481,000	951	$4,712	$28,580,000	6

 

Cars 2 became Pixar’s 12th straight #1 animated film, but to do so it had to overcome the worst reviews that any Pixar film has ever received (only 34% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, well below even Bad Teacher’s 46%).  Critics weren’t all that happy with the original 2006 Cars, which scored a low (for Pixar) 74%, but the sequel which features an espionage plot involving a heaping helping of Mater the rundown tow truck voiced by Larry the Cable Guy, was just too much for the cinematic pundits who are expecting a masterpiece from Pixar every time.  Cars 2 may not be that, but it did manage to please audiences, who gave it a solid, but not spectacular “A-“ CinemaScore. (Note, back when I was in school I would have been very happy anytime with an “A-,” but cinema audiences grade on curve, where “A” means “good,” “A-“ means “OK to good,” “B+” means mediocre, “B” means “less than average,” and anything below that designates a disappointed audience member who feels like they wasted their money).

 

Cars 2 bested the original 2006 Cars’ $60 million debut total and posted the fifth best opening ever for Pixar, though if it is adjusted for ticket price inflation, Cars 2 would fall to 9th on the Pixar list.  Cars 2 dropped 10% from Friday to Saturday, which would tend to indicate that the word-of-mouth on the film wasn’t great, but it also testifies to the efficacy of the film’s advertising, which drove audiences in for the film’s opening day.  The Cars property appeals primarily to boys (which is great for merchandising), and it’s no surprise that males made up 53% of those attending, or that a 36% of the audience was under the age of 12.  The original Cars did only 47% of its business overseas, a very low percentage for a Pixar film (Ratatouille earned 67% of its gross outside the U.S.), and the international setting of Cars 2, which takes place in Japan, Italy, France and the U.K., was not by chance.  The film opened in about 25% of the overseas markets and earned a solid $42.9 million, which gives it a worldwide debut total of $111 million for its opening frame.

 

The one big negative of the Cars 2 debut was the fact that only 40% of the film’s opening weekend total came from 3-D showings.  This makes Cars 2 the 4th straight major release (after Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Kung Fu Panda 2, and Green Lantern) to earn less than 50% of its opening take from the pricier extra-dimensional showings.  The bloom definitely appears to be off the 3-D rose as American audiences are clearly balking at paying more money to wear glasses and duck occasionally.  The 3-D medium is badly in need of another film like Avatar that really uses 3-D to create an immersive experience.

 

Bad Teacher continues the major summer 2011 trend of successful, very raunchy comedies.  Sony’s film only cost $20 million to make so it should be profitable just on the basis of its domestic run.  It may have to depend of U.S. grosses since Bridesmaids, the other contemporary “R” rated comedy film with a predominantly female cast has done almost all of its considerable damage domestically.  Of the three raunchy hits, only The Hangover Part II, which stayed in the top ten for the 5th weekend in a row, has drawn well overseas.  While it may indeed be profitable, don’t expect Bad Teacher to equal Bridesmaid’s sterling “legs,” since Sony’s Cameron Diaz vehicle could only manage a “C+” CinemaScore, which could mean a serious drop next week, though it certainly has the poster of the year so far (part of a brilliant campaign by Sony that is as responsible as anything for the film’s success).

 

So far after two weekends Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern, which cost over $200 million to make, has earned only $89.3 million domestically, and it’s not doing great business overseas either as it fell 60% from its less than stellar opening in the U.K.  The 65.5% drop it posted in the U.S. is substantially more than the second week fall-offs for X-Men: First Class (56%) and Thor (47%).  This was the weekend that the Hal Jordan epic, which didn’t face any new action film competition, should have been able to make some hay.  In its next frame Green Lantern will have the advantage of the 3-day Fourth of July weekend, but it will also face direct competition for its core audience from Transformers: Dark of the Moon.  Unless things turn around in a hurry, a second big-budget voyage to Oa appears to be a very remote possibility indeed--and did anyone notice that Universal was suddenly able to schedule its adaptation of R.I.P.D. starring you know who (see “Universal Schedules 'R.I.P.D.' With Ryan Reynolds”).

 

Green Lantern was the only film in the top 10 that posted a precipitous drop in attendance. J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 was down just 43.6%.  While it’s true that Super 8, which has been out three weekends, has only earned $13 million more worldwide than the Green Lantern, which has just been out two, but it should be noted that Super 8 cost only a quarter of what WB spent on Green Lantern, and Abrams’ film is already inching into the black.

 

The Jim Carrey-starring Mr. Popper’s Penguins, which cost $5 million more to make than Super 8, has made less than half as much, and its prospects of profitability are considerably lower, but it still managed a decent second week, dropping just 44.2%, which is not bad considering the direct competition for its young audience from Cars 2.

 

X-Men: First Class fell 44.7% in its fourth weekend as it earned an estimated $6.6 million and brought its domestic total to $132.8 million.  But that represents just 41.9% of the film’s worldwide total, which is nearing break even territory ($317 million versus a cost of $160 million).

 

The Hangover Part II  brought its year-to-date leading domestic total to $243.9 million.  The Hangover sequel has done well overseas too, where it has earned 53.7% of its over half a billion ($527 million) total, which makes it the highest grossing “R” rated comedy of all time. But it’s not #1 at the worldwide box office for 2011.  Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is nearing an even more impressive mark--the film has now earned $985.2 million, and should soon surpass the $1 billion mark, with just 23.3% of that total coming from North America.

 

Stop on by next week to see how all the summer movie heavyweights fare over the 3-day Fourth of July Weekend.