| Film | Weekend | Per | Total | |
| 1 | Shrek Forever After | $25,300,000 (-41.6%) | $5,768 | $183,043,000 |
| 2 | Get Him to the Greek | $17,423,000 | $6,460 | $17,423,000 |
| 3 | Killers | $16,100,000 | $5,631 | $16,100,000 |
| 4 | Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time | $13,900,000 (-53.8%) | $3,812 | $59,452,000 |
| 5 | Sex and the City 2 | $12,650,000 (-59.2%) | $3,672 | $73,434,000 |
| 6 | Marmaduke | $11,300,000 | $3,517 | $11,300,000 |
| 7 | Iron Man 2 | $7,783,000 (-52.7%) | $2,588 | $291,294,000 |
| 8 | Splice | $7,450,000 | $3,041 | $7,450,000 |
| 9 | Robin Hood | $5,133,000 (-50.7%) | $1,975 | $94,262,000 |
| 10 | Letters to Juliet | $3,000,000 (-48.6%) | $1,529 | $43,300,000 |
This just in: Twins, Max. Twins.
Four pictures this week went wide. Universal won the weekend of them with Get Him to the Greek. It couldn’t crack $20 Million, but was the best of the bunch. The film cost $40 Million, so there’s a good chance they’ll do more than that as the next comedy is Grown Ups in three weeks. Grown Ups should be huge, but three weeks is long enough to get to $60 Million. That’s not a great end game, but at least no one’s embarrassed like they were over MacGruber (which left theaters this weekend, dropping 2369 screens out of 2546). It did better than Killers, which critics will remember as “the film they didn’t screen for critics.” Maybe the coverage of that was the sort of inside-baseball that journalists – which often display their narcissism quite blatantly – fall into without thinking about how no one cares, but it’s still a sign of terrible. This should be a low grosser for Katherine Heigl, who’s become a fairly dependable romantic comedy leading lady. This could also play longer, but I would guess around a $50 Million all-in total is the ceiling.
Marmaduke looked and smelled like a piece of shit from the outset. The dog didn’t hunt, and should collapse completely by the time of Toy Story 3. Such means that Fox could get near $30 Million, but that’s about as far as they can go. Splice couldn’t crack $10, and Devin asked you to go, so don’t be a dick, the weekend’s not over, you can make it. Regardless, it’s not a bad number if the film doesn’t drop 60% next weekend. It probably will though, so it won’t do much more than $10 Million. Warners had the right idea on this one in the release date and everything, but they never had the hook, and some people just get offended by body horror so there it is. It’s likely a cheap bet on their part, so the film will probably be profitable for them. But barely.
The winner by default was Shrek, and the picture will make it past $200 million without question. Next week it should slip and Toy Story 3 should kill it, but $220 is the standardish number for Dreamworks animation these days. Of course the film is a disappointment in terms of the franchise, and will be the least successful of the four (the first made $267 Million), and Shrek has the most expensive voice talents of all the animation franchises. There are no winners here.
The only pictures on this list that are coming up like real, actual successes are Iron Man 2 and Letters to Juliet. Robin Hood‘s going to make it to $100 Million domestic, but the film was expensive – that’s not even half the production budget. Prince of Persia most likely won’t even have the luxury of a nine digit total domestically, and should top out around $90-ish at best. Sex and the City could limp to $100 Million, but it also might fall short. For all these films they’ll be made/saved/broken by international. With World Cup, the release dates on some of these is different so they aren’t all opening at the same time as domestic. Whereas Juliet was likely done on a budget, so a $40+ total is a win.