Da Film Da Gross Da Per Screen Da Total
1 Pirates of the Caribbean: A.W.E. $43,188,000 (-62.4%) $9,900 $216,527,000
2 Knocked Up $29,284,000 $10,199 $29,284,000
3 Shrek the Third $26,704,000 (-49.7%) $6,498 $254,611,000
4 Mr. Brooks $10,020,000 $4,084 $10,020,000
5 Spider-Man 3 $7,500,000 (-47.7%) $2,204 $318,264,000
6 Waitress $2,025,000 (-34.2%) $3,347 $9,454,000
7 Gracie $1,363,000 $1,170 $1,363,000
8 Bug $1,220,000 (-62.4%) $734 $6,092,000
9 28 Weeks Later $1,200,000 (-52.8%) $1,070 $26,577,000
10 Disturbia $1,127,000 (-41.7%) $1,088 $76,718,000

62.4% suggests that the road to $300 million will be an uphill battle for those Pirates of the Caribbean. May looked like a Juggernaut month, but it is and will be shocking that Spider-Man 3 may have the best gross of them all. Audience went, they went early and went home frustrated. These films, in their way, are the Matrix Revolutions of 2007, except that people went anyway. So do those Shrek sequels go DTV? If so, who will make up the replacement cast? Craig Ferguson as Shrek, Debra Messing as the Princess, and Martin Lawrence as Donkey? Maybe a Wayans brother. Shrek the Third at least has a shot of clearing $300 Mil, but next week offers in your face (one could even call it extreme) competition in the form of The Surf is Up. Pirates will start losing many of its multiple prints next week, and with a three hour running time, it’s going to hurt. A lot. In fact, Surf’s Up and Ocean’s Thirteen should easily swat it down to fourth place behind this week’s big winner.

All of the new films performed better than (my) expectations. Knocked Up scraped close to $30 million, and may get there when the actuals come in. Considering The 40-Year-Old Virgin opened to $21, and the production budget of this film was reported at around $30, this is huge, and it also had the best per screen of the top ten. Everybody’s got to be happy, the film should be hugely profitable, and – hopefully – it’ll have legs. It should, the worst commentary about the film involves stupid complaints such as Jeffery Wells complaining that a woman as hot and smart as Katherine Heigl would never hump Seth Rogen. Or people who don’t understand Leslie Mann’s character. But even these people are saying "good, not great," which also implies backlash. Fuck them if they can’t take a joke.

Mr. Brooks played better than I thought with a $10 million dollar heist. That’s a great number for this film, though it won’t mean much more than a $20 million dollar all-in take. Still, for counter programming for a film that should have been made on a budget, with ancillaries no one’s losing money. Gracie cracked one million, which it did with a loser of a per screen, but there’s not much out there.

Spidey is dead on the vine, and should take another 40-50% tumble next week, putting it in the bottom five, and out of a number of markets already. Waitress is huge for what it is, and seems to be generating good word of mouth. But Bug isn’t, and will likely also be gone from most markets come Friday. 28 Weeks has done well for what it is, and Disturbia is still hanging in there, like that kitten on that branch, lookin’ all cute and shit.