By Sarah Sluis
Fox gave the reins of X-Men: First Class to director Matthew Vaughn, who had a nerd-approved box-office disappointment last year with Kick-Ass. His reboot of the X-Men series had an even better reception on Rotten Tomatoes (87% positive compared to 76% positive for Kick-Ass), and performed roughly in line with expectations, earning $56 million. Fox's take is that the movie is like Batman Begins (which opened to $46 million), an origin tale that paves the way for an award-winning blockbuster like The Dark Knight. Of course, we won't know if that story is true until a few years from now.
The Hangover and The Hangover Part II both earned $32 million in their second weekends. The difference is that the sequel dropped 62% to get to that point, while the first film dipped just 27%. Audiences had to discover the first one through word-of-mouth, but the second one had lots of built-in anticipation. The Hangover Part II might not be selling out theatres for weeks and weeks. What it has is money in the bank. Part II has amassed $182 million so far, while the first film had just $100 million at this point.
Bridesmaids dipped 27% this weekend to $12.1 million, the comedy's biggest drop to date. That's still good news for this word-of-mouth hit, which just passed the $100 million mark.
As Midnight in Paris more than doubled the amount of theatres playing the Woody Allen film, it earned $2.9 million, officially making this Allen's most successful outing since Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Focus' Beginners had the best debut of any film in the specialty circuit, averaging $27,000 per screen. The Weinstein Co.'s Toronto Film Festival acquisition, Submarine, earned $10,000 per screen on five screens. Though the British comedy earned raves on the festival circuit, there were reports that the movie wasn't screening well and CEO "Harvey Scissorhands" was retooling the film. Those numbers seem to reflect that something is being lost in translation.
This Friday, pre-teen girls have a film all to themselves, Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer. The main attraction will be director J.J. Abrams evoking his inner Spielberg for Super 8.
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