'Shrek Forever After' outperforms 'Greek,' Splice,' 'Killers' and 'Marmaduke'

By Sarah Sluis

As predicted, Shrek Forever After dropped 41% to come out on top for the third week in a row. The family animated comedy brought in $25.3 million for a three-week total of $183 million. Not so bad for a third sequel.

Among new releases, Get Him to the Greek soared the highest, opening to $17.4 million. Judd Apatow produced the comedy, which stars Jonah Hill and Russell Brand. Both of these rising comic actors already have a few starring roles lined up after the film, as does director Nicholas Stoller. Stoller's last movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, also opened to $17 million, so his performance, at the very least, is consistent.

Killers may not have been screened for critics, but it still finished third with $16.1 million, slightly behind Greek. According to the budgets posted by Box Office Mojo, however, Greek is two times the winner: its $40 million budget was just over half of Killers' $70 million budget.

Bowing in sixth place, Marmaduke barked up $11.3 million. Movies about pets and especially talking pets are something of a kiddie movie mainstay, and it's never too much of a surprise when they succeed. I think I must have seen Homeward

Bound half a dozen times as a kid, and I'm not even an animal person.

Sci-fi/horror movie Splice debuted to $7.4 million, lower than expected. The movie was cast with a prestige film lead (Adrien Brody) and reviews revealed that the movie covers "chewy issues like bioethics, abortion, corporate-sponsored science,

commitment problems between lovers and even Freudian-worthy family

dynamics." However, any arthouse audiences might have been scared away by the intensely frightful trailer. Which was it supposed to be, Warner Bros? A horror movie or a creepy Gattaca? Because I'll see the second but avoid the first.

With so many different genres of movies opening this weekend, the returning films fell heavily, in the 50-60% range. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time fell 53% to $14 million, and Sex and the City 2 plummetted 60% to $12.3 million.

Finishing just outside of the top ten, Raajneeti opened to $917,000 in 124 theatres, giving it a higher per-screen average than any film in the top ten. Bollywood-produced movies without all the musical numbers have been making a quiet splash at the box office, occasionally opening in the $1 million range. My Name is Khan opened in February to $1.9 million, for example.

This Friday, The A-Team will battle against The Karate Kid.