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Well, X-Men Origins: Wolverine started the summer box office season on a winning note with an opening weekend haul of $87 million, the best opening so far in 2009. It also falls into the range of what most of the tracking and industry experts were predicting for it. Some people were predicting a little bit more, while I went out on a limb and predicted it would outperform everyone’s expectations and top $100 million, but that was not to be.

I guess the story here is that Wolverine met expectations but did not exceed them, unlike so many other movies this year which had come in well above what people were predicting for them (such as Fast and Furious). $87 million is nothing to sneeze at, though Iron Man did do better last year at this same time at $98 million. It’s also the second-highest X-Men opening after X-Men: The Last Stand in 2003. For the weekend, Wolverine opened to $35 million on Friday and then took in $29.7 mil on Saturday. The Friday midnight showings took in about $5 mil and the per theater average for the weekend was an excellent $21,225.

I know there were some people readying their knives for Wolverine by predicting that not-so-hot reviews, the piracy issue, fanboy fatigue with superhero movies and even the swine flu would dampen the box office, but I think those were all the usual ready-made excuses that people were preparing to give. At the end of the day, though, it all comes down to one question: whether people wanted to see the movie. In this case they did, so that’s that. As for the piracy issue, I think it has an impact on every movie out there to some degree. But these flicks are still making boat-loads of money if you factor in the impact from Internet downloads and the rantings of columnists like Roger Friedman about it.

So it is another strong start at the top of the charts for the crowded month of May. Still, I must point out that the “feast-or-famine” trend we have seen so far in 2009 has continued for the other new movies that debuted this weekend. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past came in at a not-so-terrible but still mediocre $15.3 million, while Battle of Terra took in a paltry $1,064,000. You can’t blame the swine flu for that number either. People simply didn’t want to go to the movie, it’s that simple.

The totals from the weekend are as follows:

1. X-Men Origins: Wolverine – $87,000,000
2. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past – $15,325,000
3. Obsessed – $12,200,000
4. 17 Again – $6,355,000
5. Monsters Vs. Aliens – $5,800,000
6. The Soloist – $5,600,000
7. Earth (2009) – $4,184,000
8. Fighting – $4,173,000
9. Hannah Montana The Movie – $4,075,000
10. State of Play – $3,655,000

Stay tuned later this week as the Reject Report returns with more movie predictions and goes where no man has gone before. Right now, though, I gotta run.