It’s been a nice long run at the top of the US box office charts for Marvel’s The Avengers, but the four-day Memorial Day weekend finally brought it down… albeit only to second place. It took the slightly reduced star power of Will Smith and the return of the Men In Black franchise to knock the superhero supergroup from its throne, but the latest outing of agents J and K earned $70 million across the long weekend, and more than $200 million worldwide.
That’s still chump change compared to The Avengers, which earned $46.8 million in its fourth weekend and boosted its US total to $523 million and $1.30bn worldwide. Third place went to Battleship, which made $13.7 million, ahead of The Dictator in fourth, earning $11.7 million. Dark Shadows was fifth with $9.4 million.
Low-budget horror thriller Chernobyl Diaries failed to scare up much interest, earning dreadful word of mouth and $9.3 million for a sixth-place launch. What To Expect When You’re Expecting went through the box office equivalent of post-partum blues, falling to seventh with $8.8 million. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel slipped a couple of places down to eighth and $8.2 million, while The Hunger Games was ninth with $2.8 million (not bad considering it has been in the charts for 10 weeks and is up to $395 million in the US). **Think Like A Man **rounded out the top 10 and earned $1.8 million.
To explain away the chart standings as swamp gas from a weather balloon trapped in a thermal pocket and reflecting the light from Venus, head on over to Box Office Mojo.