Weekend Box Office: 'Up' Rises

I succumbed to the obvious sort-of-pun this week. I couldn't help it. I'm sorry.

$68.2 million for Up is pretty close to the highest opening weekend gross for any Pixar film in history -- just about $2 million off the numbers for both Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. It beats last year's Wall-E opening weekend by about $5 million, and since it's probably a bit less challenging than that film, it may hold up a little bit better. $250 million probably isn't out of reach, but we'll see.

The numbers for fan and critical favorite Drag Me to Hell -- $16.6 million -- will be a hot topic for discussion this week. It is not a particularly strong horror opening; this year, it finds a rough analogue in The Last House on the Left. The hope is that good reviews and word-of-mouth keep it afloat in the weeks to come, whereas most horror flicks open big and sink quickly.

After opening second-banana to Night at a Museum last week, Terminator Salvation took the expected big hit its second weekend -- 62%. It's likely to top out around $130 million domestically which, I feel safe in saying, is below expectations. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is running a little bit behind its predecessor, though the first film had the benefit of opening at Christmastime. And The Brothers Bloom quietly expanded onto 150 screens, winding up in 11th place with a decent per-screen average.

Star Trek passed $200 million and now holds the #1 spot for the year.

The full top 10 after the jump.


1 - Up (Disney) - $68.20 ($18,109) - $68.20
2 - Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Fox) - $25.50 ($6,218) - $105.30
3 - Drag Me to Hell (Universal) - $16.63 ($6,630) - $16.63
4 - Terminator Salvation (Warner Bros.) - $16.14 ($4,481) - $90.66
5 - Star Trek (Paramount) - $12.80 ($3,650) - $209.50
6 - Angels & Demons (Sony) - $11.20 ($3,233) - $104.76
7 - Dance Flick (Paramount) - $4.90 ($1,993) - $19.24
8 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Fox) - $3.90 ($1,723) - $170.87
9 - Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (New Line) - $1.91 ($1,314) - $50.02
10 - Obsessed (Screen Gems) - $0.67 ($979) - $67.51
11 - The Brothers Bloom (Summit) - $0.65 ($4,405) - $1.38

Next week: Land of the Lost and The Hangover are the mega-releases, which is kind of boring. Even more boringly, My Life in Ruins will hit around 1,100 screens.