We’ll bet there will be more than a few champagne corks popping at Pixar Animation Studio’s Emeryville campus in the next few days (we pity the poor staffers slaving away on Cars 2 and the company’s other movies), since the latest entry in the Toy Story series has stormed into the box office charts, breaking several records including the company’s own opening day/weekend figures. The previous holder was The Incredibles with $70.5 million, but Buzz, Woody and the rest blasted past that to earn an impressive $109 million according to estimates. It’s possible that figure could creep up given the crowds in the US celebrating Father’s Day this weekend with a trip to the cinema.
And with the overwhelmingly positive response to the film, it’s almost guaranteed to have solid legs, putting it in prime position to be one of the top summer earners for the year. Plus, due to the World Cup, the movie still has many big markets (including here in the UK) left to open, which suggests it’ll be a hefty moneymaker for Disney. Pixar is now 11 for 11 in terms of successful pics.
The new movie’s winning ways meant that The Karate Kid dropped down one place, though it survived a mild 48% drop to snatch a solid $29 million in its second weekend. The A-Team fell to third with $13.7 million, leaving Get Him To The Greek ($6.1 million) and **Shrek Forever After **($5.5 million) to round out the top five.
Digging into the rest of the top 10, we find Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time holding soundly to sixth place, earning $5.2 million, with Killers in seventh and $5.1 million.
And then there’s poor old Jonah Hex. With seriously mixed reviews, poisonous word of mouth and rumours of all sorts of trouble during shooting and editing, the gothic supernatural Western would need its own main character’s trick of talking to the dead to shout much about its result. The movie took in a shoddy $5 million, with a quick exit from the charts likely as cinemas boot it from screens to make way for films that people want to see. Hex’s take was enough to keep it above** Iron Man 2** (ninth with $2.6 million after seven weeks in the charts) and Marmaduke, which seems to be fading fast, earning $2.4 million this weekend for a $27 million total. Maybe there is some justice in the charts…
For a full listing of the top 10, infinity and beyond, head to Box Office Mojo.