Weekend Box Office | featured news

The finale of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy took in about $162 million in North America, less than expected, in the wake of the deadly theater shooting in Colorado.

"Ice Age: Continental Drift," the fourth film in the animated series about a woolly mammoth and his prehistoric friends, trampled "The Amazing Spider-Man" at U.S. and Canadian box offices over the weekend, selling $46 million worth of tickets and reaching No. 1.

Your new friendly neighborhood Spider-Man has spun himself a $65 million opening weekend and $140 million in his first six days at U.S. theaters. Worldwide, "The Amazing Spider-Man" has climbed to $341.2 million.

For the third time this year, following strong openings from "The Hunger Games" and "Snow White and the Huntsman," a movie with a tough female protagonist topped the box office in a major way.

Despite it's all-star cast, "Rock of Ages" ekes out $15.1 million opening; "That's My Boy" grosses $13 million, marking Adam Sandler's worst opening for a comedy in eight years... Instead, it was holdovers "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" and "Prometheus" that continued to top the chart, staying at No. 1 and No. 2 respectively with $35.5 million and $20.2 million.

Circus animals and space beasts have lifted Hollywood to a huge weekend. The cuddly critters of "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" led the weekend with a $60.4 million debut domestically, followed by a big opening for Ridley Scott's alien saga "Prometheus" at No.

The Universal event pic is the first of the recent fairy tale retellings to win at the box office; Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" opens overseas to stellar $35 million from only 15 markets, nearly matching the $39.3 million grossed by "Snow White" from 45 territories.

The comic action heroes of "Men in Black 3" have taken over the weekend box office from the comic-book superheroes of "The Avengers." According to studio estimates Monday, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones' latest "Men in Black" installment debuted with $70 million domestically over the four-day Memorial Day weekend, which proved unusually quiet at theaters for Hollywood overall.

Once again, it was all about The Avengers at the box office, as three new releases failed to even approach the Marvel superhero blockbuster’s third-weekend gross of $55.1 million, according to studio estimates. The movie dropped 47 percent — an admirable hold for a picture that’s putting up such huge numbers. By the end of Sunday, The Avengers will have made an estimated $457.1 million domestically, passing $450 million in a record 17 days. (The previous record holder, The Dark Knight, reached that milestone in 27 days.) Meanwhile, The Avengers also passed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest to become Disney’s biggest movie ever both domestically and worldwide. It now sits in fourth place on the all-time worldwide chart, behind only Avatar, Titanic, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2.

"Avengers" crosses the $1 billion mark worldwide in only 19 days and is the first film in history to hit $100 million in its second weekend at the domestic box office; "Dark Shadows" opens to a soft $28.8 million.