Top Shelf at the Box Office for 6/01/09

If I had any money, I'd invest in Pixar. I'm pretty sure I own some Pixar stock in the movie stock exchange game thingy I used to play and have ignored because of the way the Jena Malone stock has been devalued of late. This week saw the release of two major nationwide releases that couldn't possibly be more different. I caught both of 'em, and liked them both for what it's worth.

1. Up- $68.2M

That makes 10, count 'em 10 blockbusters in a row for the geniuses at Pixar. They simply can not make a film that tanks, even when using concepts that sound fairly pedestrian. In terms of rank, this is the third highest grossing film in the bunch, and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's Ed Asner's highest grossing film ever!!! Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Up also is the first Pixar film to capitalize on the 3-D craze, with the feature accounting for approximately $35M of the total. Not too shabby, but I'm guessing the actual added benefit was neglible(as it was in the movie itself). This one is all about the unique marketing campaign, and Pixar's well established reputation. The only real threat on the horizon for Up is the upcoming Ice Age film, which has done monster business on it's own the last few years. That film doesn't release for another month, so expect many weeks of huge business and a surefire $200M success.

2. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian- $25.5M/$105M

There's really only room for one family comedy to reign supreme at a time, so ofcourse last week's champeen plummeted some 53%. That's still a pretty damn good total for 10 days, but nothing compared to the previous installment. As it stands right now, this one will fall short of the previous film's total of $250M. So in the battle of Carla Gugino vs. Amy Adams, Gugino and her succulent knockers are gonna come out on top. Because obviously that's what this little contest is all about. Hooters.

3. Drag Me to Hell- $16.6M

I'm as big a fan of Sam Raimi as anyone, but I hated the TV campaigns for this great film. They were far too reminiscent of the much lamer PG-13 horror films that have come out recently, when by any comparison Drag is a totally different beast. I think that may have hurt them a little bit, which is why it's opening isn't as large as some other horror films that have come out recently. Still, this is an impressive open for a genre movie with little name recognition other than it's director, who's last film was a turd sandwich(spider-man 3).

4. Terminator Salvation- $16.1M/$90.7M

I'm hesitant to call this a bust, but surely the studio must've expected more. I'm of the opinion that a franchise like Terminator is only appealing to a certain segment, especially at this stage where we are really diving headlong into a story that only die-hard Terminator fans will give a crap about. Somewhat poor word of mouth seems to be doing a better job of killing John Connor than any robot ever could.

5. Star Trek- $12.8M/$210M

Party at Worf's crib! JJ Abrams' reboot of the classic franchise is now 2009's top grossing film, finally surpassing Monsters vs. Aliens for the title. I expect that the remarkable success will lead to a bevy of other reboots of classic franchises: a younger Godfather film helmed by Catherine Hardwick; a young Indiana Jones featuring Zac Efron; and Brett Ratner's version The Dollars Trilogy, starring Jackie Chan.

6. Angels & Demons- $11.2M/$105M

It just feels strange how insignificant this movie seems to be. Perhaps they would've been better off holding it until the Spring.

7. Dance Flick- $4.9M/$19.2M

Now that I've seen this garbage(for free thank God) I can honestly say that what little comedic talent the Wayans' once had died with I'm Gonna Get You Sucka. You can make all the claims you want about Scary Movie, but just sit down and watch that back to back with Hollywood Shuffle and let me know which one you laugh at more.

8. X-men Origins: Wolverine- $3.9M/$171M

9. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past- $1.91M/$50M

10. Obsessed- $665K/$67.5M

Also: So how did The Brothers Bloom fare in it's first week in wide release? Not too bad, actually. In terms of the charts it finished at 11th place with a total of $665,000. Not bad considering it's only at 148 theatres for a hefty average of $4,405. That would place it 4th amongst the top 10 films of the week. Approximately $30 of those dollars coming from yours truly alone, with possibly more to come.

A lot of love for Jessica Biel's period piece, Easy Virtue, which had the 2nd highest per site average of all the top 25 films, raking in $361,000 at only 26 sites.