Hangover Ii Cure For Industry's Headache?
30 May 2011
Hangover Ii Cure For Industry's Headache?
The principal complaint from many critics about The Hangover II was that it lacked the surprise element of the first film and amounted basically to a copy of the original. But the actual surprise came at the box office over the weekend as the movie set an all-time record for a comedy. As reported by Daily Variety, Warner Bros. estimated that it earned $86.5 million between Friday and Sunday and an additional $31.6 million on opening-day Thursday for a domestic total of $118.1 million -- and there's still an additional day left to go on the five-day Memorial Day holiday. The studio figures that the movie will wind up the holiday with about $138 million, breaking the record for an R-rated film set in 2003 by The Matrix Reloaded . DreamWorks's Kung Fu Panda II did only half the business, but $53.8 million over the regular weekend and $62.4 million over the four-day period is nothing to grumble about -- and the movie is expected to perform particularly strongly on the Monday holiday, when families traditionally make their way to the theaters in droves. Sailing in at No. 3 was Disney's Pirates Of The Caribbean On Stranger Tides , which dropped a modest 56 percent to $39.3 million for the three-day weekend. The movie is looting the overseas box office, where it has now taken in $470.8 million to bring its global haul to $623.7 million in less than two weeks. There was more good news for an industry that had started out 2011 in a funk, with receipts for most of the year coming in well below last year's. Universal's Bridesmaids went unscathed by the entry of Hangover II into the market, dropping a mere 21 percent in its third week to an estimated $15.4 million for the three days and bringing its total to about $85 million. Veteran box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian called its success "incredible." That might be an apt description of the Memorial Day weekend as a whole, which appears to have broken the four-day record of $255 million set in 2007 with what Dergarabedian predicted would be around $270 million. Even a couple of films in limited release did amazingly well. Appearing to dispel concerns that it is too artsy for general appeal, Terrence Malick's Cannes Film Festival winner The Tree of Life , starring Brad Pitt, opened in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles with $352,320 -- or $88,080 per screen. Even more impressive, Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris expanded to 58 theaters in its second weekend to garner an estimated $1.9 million, lifting it to seventh place in the box-office standings.
The top ten films for the three-day weekend, according to studio estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo 1. The Hangover Part II , $86.4 million; 2. Kung Fu Panda 2 , $48 million; 3. Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tide s, $39.3 million; 4. Bridesmaids , $16.3 million; 5. Thor , $9.3 million; 6. Fast Five , $6.6 million; 7. Midnight in Paris , $1.9 million; 8. Jumping the Broom , $1.9 million; 9. Something Borrowed , $1.8 million; 10. Rio , $1.7 million.
30/05/2011
Contactmusic
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