Shrek played the 'Jolly Green Giant' at the box office over the weekend, pulling in an impressive $42.1 million, the second largest opening for an animated film ever, and the largest debut ever for the Dreamworks studio, far surpassing Gladiator's $34.8 bow last spring.  Only Toy Story 2's Thanksgiving-aided opening of $57.4 million surpassed Shrek's debut in the ranks of animated films.  Exit polling from this weekend's showings indicate that Shrek should continue to receive good word of mouth, since the film managed to maintain an 'A' rating with viewers.  Interestingly enough, Dreamworks estimated that the opening weekend audience was split almost 50/50 between families and non-family audiences.  This definitely gives Shrek room to grow with both of those key audience groups, especially given the overwhelmingly positive reviews, 71 out of 82 surveyed by the Rotten Tomatoes website.

 

The Mummy Returns came in second with a strong showing of $20.5 million bringing its cumulative total to $146.5 for the first 17 days in release.  It does appear that The Mummy Returns has a chance to pass $200 million in domestic box office gross in spite of increasing competition in the weeks ahead.  Despite a spate of poor reviews, The Mummy Returns continues to outperform the film it was based on, the 1998 version of The Mummy.

 

Will Shrek be able to continue his 'green' reign over the box office?  Actually it appears that Disney's heavily hyped Pearl Harbor, a $135 million dollar blockbuster, which opens this coming Memorial Day weekend, will take the top spot.  But Shrek still has the potential to make lots more money and stay in the top ten for weeks.  Comedies with good word of mouth tend to have longer 'legs' than 'event' movies that often manage huge openings, but just as often fall off quickly at the box office.  The second and third weeks of release should be decisive for Shrek.  If it continues to perform well at the box office, then there will be more opportunities to move tie-in merchandise.  Animated films that have had huge openings like Shrek, namely Toy Story 2 ($57.4 million) and The Lion King ($40.9 million) have sold a lot of related toys.  The next few weeks will be crucial in the selling of Shrek toys from McFarlane and Shrek trading cards from Dart Flipcards.