How many comic-book “origins” movies will audiences pay to see in seven weeks? For North American moviegoers, apparently, three’s a crowd.
Green Lantern, the first movie to be based on the trans-galactic hero introduced by DC comics in 1941, won the weekend with $52.7 million, according to early studio estimates — but that was the lowest take for the summer season’s preternatural dudes. In early May, audiences bought into Thor, giving the Marvel thunder god $65.7 million in the film’s first three days and a current worldwide gross of about $435 million. Two weeks ago, Marvel’s X-Men: First Class managed a three-day opening of $55.1 million, and has already bagged a quarter-billion dollars globally. With a traffic jam of megamuscular god-men at the multiplexes, viewers could be suffering from superhero fatigue. Sorry, they may say, I already gave at the box office. and Emma Roberts played high-school sweethearts in The Art of Getting By, which opened in 610 theaters to a minuscule $700,000 take. Two highly praised documentaries opened to decent, $16,000-per screen averages: Buck in five theaters, Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times in two. Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris expanded to 1,000 venues and did a fantastique $5.2 million , while Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life finished in 12th place with $1.1 million at 114 theaters . For arthouse denizens, at least, Woody and Terry are auteur superheroes whose appeal hasn’t waned.
Here are the Sunday estimates of this weekend’s top-grossing pictures in North American theaters, as reported by Box Office Mojo:
1. Green Lantern, $52.7 million, first weekend
2. Super 8, $21.25 million; $72.8 million, second week
3. Mr. Popper’s Penguins, $18.2 million, first weekend
4. X-Men: First Class, $11.5 million; $119.9 million, third week
5. The Hangover Part II, $9.6 million; $232.7 million, fourth week
6. Kung Fu Panda 2, $8.7 million; $143.3 million, fourth week
7. Bridesmaids, $7.4 million; $136.8 million, sixth week
8. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, $6.2 million; $220.3 million, fifth week
9. Midnight in Paris, $5.2 million; $21.8 million, fifth week
10. Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer, $2.2 million; $11.2 million, second week See the 100 best movies of all time.
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