The summer box office slump spilled into a new month as the North American box office delivered the worst June frame in five years. Four new releases targeting different audiences were sprinkled throughout the top ten but none managed to unseat reigning chart king Shrek Forever After which held the number one spot for the third straight time. Ticket sales were once again down sharply compared to last year as the films Hollywood has programmed are still not generating the usual summer excitement.
Shrek Forever After became the first of the four ogre toons to top the box office for three consecutive weekends as the 3D pic grossed $25.5M, according to final studio figures, falling by a relatively light 41% from the Friday-to-Sunday portion of last weekend's Memorial Day holiday session. It was the smallest drop suffered by any wide release. Paramount and DreamWorks Animation have taken in $183.2M after 17 days which still trails the performances of the previous Mike Myers sequels. Shrek 2, the top-grosser of the franchise, had collected $314.5M by this point while Shrek the Third stood at $255.9M. Those films had lower ticket prices and no 3D surcharges. Forever After is on track to finish its run in the vicinity of $250M.
Universal enjoyed a solid opening for its raunchy comedy Get Him to the Greek which laughed up $17.6M leading a quartet of new releases. The R-rated film about a record company assistant assigned to escort an unstable rock star from London to Los Angeles averaged a good $6,515 from 2,697 theaters. Jonah Hill, Russell Brand, and Sean Combs starred and Judd Apatow produced. The debut was almost identical to the $17.7M second place bow and $6,335 average of 2008's Forgetting Sarah Marshall which inspired the Aldous Snow character played by Brand in Greek. Both films were directed by Nicholas Stoller. Budgeted at $40M, Greek skewed a bit towards adult men as studio research showed that 53% of the audience was male while 55% was under 30.
Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl followed close behind in third place with their new action-comedy Killers which launched with $15.8M from 2,859 sites for a respectable $5,539 average. The PG-13 film about a woman who discovers after getting married that her husband is a secret assassin opened a few notches below the $20.2M debut of Kutcher's last summer offering What Happens in Vegas with Cameron Diaz from May 2008. Killers was not screened for the press before its release, but critics reviewing it on opening day panned the film.
Disney saw a steep 53% drop for its expensive adventure film Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time which grossed $14M following its disappointing holiday opening. With only $59.6M collected after ten days, the Jerry Bruckheimer production looks to end its run near the $90M mark. Overseas and home video revenue need to be stellar in order to recoup the estimated $150-200M in production costs plus the additional cash spent on worldwide marketing.
Suffering the worst decline of any film in the top ten was Sex and the City 2 which tumbled 60% in its second weekend to $12.3M. Warner Bros. has banked only $73.1M in 11 days trailing 28% behind the $101.8M that the first Sex rang up in the same number of days. The gals should end up near the $100M mark at the end of the domestic run.
Fox learned this weekend that Marmaduke is no Marley & Me. The new comic strip pic bowed to $11.6M from 3,213 theaters for a lackluster $3,610 average and did not come close to the $36.4M debut of the studio's other Owen Wilson-led dog flick. Marmaduke was based on a property with only limited popularity and it lacked the dazzle of 3D that kids are now used to from other family films. With The Karate Kid opening Friday and Toy Story 3 in 3D debuting a week later, the road ahead looks difficult for the Great Dane.
| # | Title | Jun 4 - 6 | Weeks | Cumulative | Distributor | ||||
| 1 | Shrek Forever After | $ 25,486,465 | 3 | $ 183,229,453 | Paramount | ||||
| 2 | Get Him to the Greek | 17,570,955 | 1 | 17,570,955 | Universal | ||||
| 3 | Killers | 15,837,266 | 1 | 15,837,266 | Lionsgate | ||||
| 4 | Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time | 14,019,131 | 2 | 59,621,721 | Buena Vista | ||||
| 5 | Sex and the City 2 | 12,344,303 | 2 | 73,128,387 | Warner Bros. | ||||
| 6 | Marmaduke | 11,599,661 | 1 | 11,599,661 | Fox | ||||
| 7 | Iron Man 2 | 7,918,708 | 5 | 291,429,870 | Paramount | ||||
| 8 | Splice | 7,385,277 | 1 | 7,385,277 | Warner Bros. | ||||
| 9 | Robin Hood | 5,366,940 | 4 | 94,496,010 | Universal | ||||
| 10 | Letters to Juliet | 3,036,367 | 4 | 43,337,836 | Summit | ||||
| 11 | Raajneeti | 850,244 | 1 | 850,244 | UTV Motion Pictures | ||||
| 12 | Date Night | 775,810 | 8 | 95,334,452 | Fox | ||||
| 13 | Just Wright | 767,818 | 3 | 20,193,778 | Fox Searchlight | ||||
| 14 | How To Train Your Dragon | 488,283 | 10 | 213,883,143 | Paramount | ||||
| 15 | The Secret in Their Eyes | 397,705 | 8 | 3,992,319 | Sony Classics | ||||
| 16 | The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo | 313,774 | 12 | 7,382,561 | Music Box | ||||
| 17 | City Island | 308,840 | 12 | 5,272,444 | Anchor Bay | ||||
| 18 | Alice in Wonderland | 300,515 | 14 | 333,627,878 | Buena Vista | ||||
| 19 | Please Give | 264,567 | 6 | 1,707,150 | Sony Classics | ||||
| 20 | Babies | 252,958 | 5 | 6,529,179 | Focus |
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