Box Office: Pixar Wins Again With ‘Up’
Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on May 31, 2009
Well, sometimes final results don’t live up to all the hype. All the hype about Susan Boyle did nothing to help her in the final vote in “Britain’s Got Talent” this weekend, and all the LeBron James hype didn’t put the Cavs in the NBA finals.
But many times, the final results do live up to the expectations — like the box office this weekend. As predicted by just about everyone, the rest of the field was looking Up — way Up — at yet another dominating Pixar performance at the box office.
Up rolled to $21 million on Friday and coasted to $68 million for the weekend, one of the best openings for a Pixar movie ever. This is their best opening in something like four and a half years, in fact. Only The Incredibles and Finding Nemo have done better business in their opening weekends. Part of the reason for the good box office was 1,500 3D showings, so that brought in a ton of extra cash from those higher admission prices.
So with the good box office and the critical raves, what else is there to say? Up is yet another total success for Pixar, just like all the other ones (WALL-E, Ratatouille, Cars, etc) . I don’t know how the heck they are able to keep on churning out the successes like they do, but they just do.
As for Terminator Salvation, it continued its swift spiral downward, finishing a dismal fourth at $16.1 million behind Drag Me to Hell which made $16.7 million. That’s a pretty massive dip if you ask me. As for Drag Me to Hell, I’m a little surprised it didn’t do better business, given that horror movies have been on a roll this year. I think maybe people aren’t in the mood for horror movies so much these days, with the weather improving.
Final note for the weekend: Star Trek ended the weekend with $209.5 million dollars and ranks as the Number One movie in overall domestic gross for 2009, ahead of Monsters vs. Aliens. I expect Up is going to give Monsters vs. Aliens a run for its money by the time things are settled. I don’t think it can catch Star Trek, though. Star Trek’s too far ahead and making too much money.
The weekend numbers:
- Up – $68,200,000
- Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian – $25,500,000
- Drag Me to Hell – $16,628,000
- Terminator Salvation – $16,140,000
- Star Trek – $12,800,000
- Angels & Demons – $11,200,000
- Dance Flick – $4,900,000
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine – $3,900,000
- Ghosts of Girlfriends Past – $1,905,000
- Obsessed – $665,000
That does it for what has been a hectic month of May at the box office. Coming up here at the Reject Report, we kick off out June box office coverage by previewing Land of the Lost (Will Ferrell). See you then.
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