Now, sit down for this one, because you're going to be surprised. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End topped the worldwide US office this weekend. Oh, we know, we were all expecting Paprika to see it off too. The third in the seafaring franchise grabbed a US haul of $142.1 million over the four day bank holiday weekend, $156.1million including previews. Which gave it the record for the Memorial Day Holiday Weekend, number 1,224 on the list of most spurious records ever, just ahead of Longest In-grown Toenail.
It's big bucks to be sure, but it's actually just slightly less than Dead Man's Chest, which took $135.6million in three days, and ten million less than Spider-Man 3's opening three days. Pirates could, however, lay claim to the biggest worldwide opening with $401million, surpassing $382million taken by Spider-Man 3 just a few weeks ago. Here endeth the race for Biggest Opening Ever for this year.
Hopefully the second wave of summer hits will bring us actual good movies, rather than great trailers with disappointing full-length results. To restore your faith in summer movies, may we recommend to you Knocked Up, which is out on August 24 and is several shades of awesome. We're also still keeping fingers crossed for The Simpsons Movie, The Bourne Ultimatum and Transformers, all of which have promised us so much so far and will make us cry if they're not great.