Top Shelf at the Box: 6/8/09

It's been a summer jam packed with action flicks so far, even moreso than normal. It seems like every week there's another one ready to snap up our hard earned loot. So it's a welcome surprise that essentially the top 3 films are a cartoon, a comedy, and a family adventure.

1. Up- $44.2M/$137M

Pixar's latest classic about an grouchy old curmudgeon who decides to airlift his house with balloons stayed afloat at #1, only losing about 35% from last week. The critically acclaimed film withstood the challenge of fellow family film Land of the Lost by more than double. Even with Imagine That, Eddie Murphy's next family comedy on the horizon, I still expect Up to remain firmly in the Top 3 if not at #1 for yet another week. No, I don't think The Taking of Pelham 123 will do anything. It looks terrible.

2. The Hangover- $43.3M

Just narrowly missing the top slot was The Hangover, my pick for funniest movie of the year by far. Surprisingly, analyst expectations were fairly low for this, but the amazing word of mouth helped push this ahead of some of the bigger name films around. I'm pretty sure the brilliant ad campaign, which highlighted just a few of the most eye opening moments(Mike Tyson singing Phil Collins, for example) while leaving you enough to wonder how in the heck they all happened. By comparison, The Hangover actually had a better opening than the last true monster comedy, Wedding Crashers, which is appropriate because Crashers sucked and The Hangover rocks.

3. Land of the Lost- $19.5M

Granted, Lost has a lot of competition this week, but that's no excuse. It actually has the distinction of having a lower opening weekend gross than last year's Journey to the Center of the Earth, which brought in $21M. F'real? This is all a Will Ferrell movie is worth nowadays? Homeboy needs to rethink this whole TV movie adaptation thing. Guess he forgot Bewitched blew somethin' fierce. They really screwed the pooch on this one by not being honest about the true nature of the film. The ads promoted this thing as a family friendly adventure, but it's actually pretty vulgar. Not to mention, there never really seemed to be a reason for this film to exist other than to have Ferrell do the same damn thing he does in every movie. It's gotten old.

4. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian- $14.7M/$127M

Ben Stiller's sequel continues to hold up pretty well, even though it's not probably not going to break the previous film's total. The film's total is still helped greatly by IMAX, which I can speak from experience makes the film marginally more enjoyable. Amy Adams on IMAX....yum.

5. Star Trek- $8.4M/$223M

I think Star Trek will still be in the top 10 when the summer finally winds down. It continues to have smallest audience drop of all the returning films, this time only losing 33%. Crazy.

6. Terminator Salvation- $8.18M/$105M

Floperoonie! Fumblerooskie! It's losing out to Terminator 3, yo. Claire Danes Terminator 3.

7. Drag Me to Hell- $7.34M/$28.5M

Feels like this film's been forgotten already, doesn't it?

8. Angels & Demons- $6.5M/$116M

It's the highest grossing film in the entire world at just over $400M according to estimates. But it's domestic gross has to be something of a disappointment, considering the phenomenal success of the original.

9. My Life in Ruins- $3.23M

It's no Greek Wedding, but that's not too shabby for only opening at around 1,100 sites. Then again, that's actually less loot than the dreadful Connie & Carla took in. Hmph.

10. Dance Flick- $2M/$22.7M

Seriously? Who are the people who chose to spend their money on this rather than The Hangover to quench their comedy thirst? They ought to be ashamed and open to public ridicule.

Also: Sam Mendes's Away We Go, featuring Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski, brought in a phenomenal $143,000 in only 4 sites. Wow. Focus Features(my favorite studio) is set to expand the film to more markets this week.