Kids And Grown Ups Alike Choose More Toys Over Grown Ups And Tom Cruise

June 27, 2010 | by The Infamous Billy The Kidd |

Hollywood didn’t offer up much in the way of new releases this past weekend, and, as a result, TOY STORY 3 was the box office champ for the 2nd week in a row, raking in another $59 million to top the $200 million mark already. The 3-D and IMAX screens continued to be a boost for Pixar’s latest classic, as the overall audience dropped 46% from opening weekend. However, with the critically-blasted GROWN UPS and the lackluster KNIGHT AND DAY being the only competition, this was an easy victory for TOY STORY 3.

GROWN UPS did a little better than I predicted, registering a 2nd place finish with its $41 million tally. Really…? $41 million worth of people went out and saw this retread of every movie Adam Sandler, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Kevin James, and Chris Rock have ever done, all rolled into one? That’s sad, people… that’s just sad.

Not even the Tom Cruise of yesterday could have saved KNIGHT AND DAY… well, okay, maybe Maverick could have provided a bit of incentive to come out and see this pairing with Cameron Diaz. KNIGHT AND DAY was only able to pull in $20.5 million, giving it a grand total of $27.7 million since its release on Wednesday. That’s right… it’s jump up 2 days only helped it make an average of $3.6 million each day. Talk about sad…

Somehow THE KARATE KID continues to make money, which makes me angry, while the public is still coming out to see KILLERS, too, which confuses me. And, because apparently people live under rocks in various places, you’d be surprised to know that JONAH HEX made more money than $0 in its second week, and there’s no excuse for that. How could these people not hear or believe how bad it was? Don’t ever question my theory that people are inherently dumb again. Not you, of course… you rose up from that to better yourself, and don’t worry… we’re all proud of you.

This week sees a pair of blockbusters going head-to-head over the 4th of July weekend, and, as much as the kids might come out for THE LAST AIRBENDER in 3-D, based on the Nickelodeon series, it’ll be no match for THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE, which will have the benefit of carrying the IMAX screens it’ll be booting TOY STORY 3 off. If it’s any indication as to what ECLIPSE should do for business, the last installment of the saga opened to $142.8 million, while also setting records for the biggest midnight screening ever ($26.3 million) and the biggest single-day domestic gross ($72.7 million). And that was in November, when people had stuff to do. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some Twi-hards potentially seeing the new movie 2 or 3 times in the same day, pushing ECLIPSE somewhere near the $160 million mark, while THE LAST AIRBENDER may do somewhere in the neighborhood of $65 million.

Here’s the full top 10 from this weekend’s box office: