When is $71.25 million not worth shaking a big, green stick at? When the fourth Shrek installment makes more than $50 million less than the previous installment, that's when. Studio expectations were already very conservative, expecting SHREK FOREVER AFTER to pull in approximately $100 million, $20 million less than the record SHREK THE THIRD holds for the highest animated opening weekend in history. I'm certain that this last Shrek tale will earn back its budget globally but it seems that Dreamworks is getting out of the Shrek business just in time. The green has been made.
Still, it could be worse ... much worse. You could be MACGRUBER. This "SNL" skit inspired film inspired very, very little interest at the box office this week. It's a shame really as it was pretty funny but people assume the worst when it comes to these kinds of films. With a per screen average of $1.6K, MACGRUBER may go on to make back its relatively small $10 million budget. At least things didn't go the route of IT'S PAT! That "SNL" film pulled in $60K in its entire run.
Sneaking into the Top 10 at number 10 is the multilingual film, KITES, in which a mortally wounded man left for dead in the desert keeps himself alive by focusing on winning back the love of his life. Filmmaker, Brett Rattner, threw his name behind the film to get more people to see it and they did, with a decent per screen average of just under $5K.
NEXT WEEK: There will be no box office review next week as I will be in Montreal for the weekend but there will still be movies coming out. Opening to early previews on Wednesday and officially on Thursday is the hotly anticipated SEX AND THE CITY 2. I am very curious to see if the girls can pull it off a second time on 3400 screens. I am also very curious to see for how much of PRINCE OF PERSIA: SANDS OF TIME Jake Gyllenhaal is shirtless. The video game inspired film opens on 3500 screens on Friday. Art house films include MICMACS from the director of AMELIE, festival hit, AGORA, with Rachel Weisz and a re-issue of one of my favorite films, Jean-Luc Godard's A BOUT DE SOUFFLE (BREATHLESS).
Source: Box Office Mojo