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Sunday
07Jun2009

Box Office - 'Up' Barely Beats 'The Hangover'

DateSunday, June 7, 2009 at 11:56AM
A very close race for the top spot highlighted this weekend's box office derby, and in fact, because we're only dealing with estimated receipts, I don't know that you can say this one is decided just yet. In the end, it appears that Pixar's Up will win its second weekend with a total of $44.2 million, according to Box Office Mojo, raising its total to $137 million in two weeks.

The surprising performance of The Hangover continued through the rest of the weekend, with the R-rated comedy starting with a $16 million Friday, and finishing with $43.3 million over the three days. Up probably will walk away the winner, but because we're dealing with less than a million dollars separating the top two films, it could get even closer when the final tallies are in.

The Hangover became the fourth highest grossing R-rated comedy ever, but look at the names ahead of it: Sex and the City, Bad Boys II, and American Pie 2. They're all franchises. Perhaps the most obvious comparison would be Wedding Crashers, an R-rated summer comedy that did huge business. It opened with $33 million, and with established stars, so that tells you a bit about how big this weekend really was.

Land of the Lost wasn't worth making in the first place, at least not like this, and audiences stayed away: $19 million for a movie with Will Ferrell and this much marketing and promotion is terrible. His last summer comedy to open that low was Bewitched. Don't expect this film to wind up in the black; Universal spent tons of money on advertising and with a fairly limited international run, it'll have to do well on video and in TV rights to only break even.

By contrast, Angels & Demons will probably not make money based on U.S. receipts, but considering its international box office is already well over $200 million, it has already become very profitable.

The Top Five:
1 - Up ($44.2 million)
2 - The Hangover ($43.3 million)
3 - Land of the Lost ($19.5 million)
4 - Night at the Museum ($14.6 million)
5 - Star Trek ($8.4 million)

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | CommentPost a Comment |

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