1. Cowboys & Aliens and The Smurfs- $36.2M
Yep, that's right. It's a tie between the live-action/animated version of The Smurfs and Jon Favreau's summer tentpole featuring two of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Indiana Jones(Harrison Ford) and James Bond(Daniel Craig) couldn't put the little blue runts down for the count, which I'm guessing won't make producers Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard very happy. Especially after 14 years of development. On the one hand it makes for one of the most successful "western" openings ever, and for the unproven Craig it ranks as one of his best as well. But with that expensive cast and massive budget($150M+), it looks like a major fail. As for The Smurfs? It opened at over 400 few theaters than C&A, and still matched it. There's something to be said for the family friendly nature of it, and the fact that these CGI flicks have been like printing money lately. Still, almost nobody would have predicted this outcome. The first of a planned trilogy, I think we can certainly count on seeing the sequel within the next two years.
3. Captain America: the First Avenger- $24.9M/$117M
Toppling down to third after a crushing 61% drop, Captain America is still performing pretty strongly, and isn't that far away from Thor's $180M domestic total. It remains to be seen how a film this steeped in American patriotism does globally. I'd imagine not as well as it's mythological predecessor.
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 2- $21.9M/$318M
Slipped another 53%, but well on it's way to crossing the $1B global threshold.
5. Crazy, Stupid, Love- $19.3M
A strong start for Crazy Stupid Love, which benefitted from a little bit of counter programming getting away from the craziness of Cowboys & Aliens, and the kiddie fare like The Smurfs. This was a film targeted squarely at adults who wanted to see funnyman Steve Carell, and Ryan Gosling in a rare mainstream appearance. He hasn't had a major film release like this since The Notebook
. 6. Friends with Benefits- $9.3M/$38.2M
Tumbled 50% from last week, maybe losing some of it's audience to Crazy Stupid Love.
7. Horrible Bosses- $7.1M/$96.2M
8. Transformers: Dark of the Moon- $5.97M/$338M
9. Zookeeper- $4.2M/$68.7M
10. Cars 2- $2.3M/$182M
