Box Office: “Toy Story” Continues to Clean Up, Tom Cruise is Irrelevant, America Still Loves to See Adam Sandler

“Toy Story” Continues to Clean Up, Tom Cruise is Irrelevant, America Still Loves to See Adam Sandler

Box Office

By our guest blogger, Tim Strain

Rest assured, Pixar, you can still do no wrong. “Toy Story 3” handily won the box office in its second weekend, easing 46 percent to bring in an additional $59 million to bring its total to $227 million. Riding high after its record-breaking $110 million opening weekend, it had a drop similar to “Cars” and “Wall-E.” It already has outgrossed “Wall-E” and is the seventh biggest Pixar film after just 10 days. At its current pace, it will handily outgross “Finding Nemo’s” $340 million total and has the potential to be 2010’s biggest film, although “Eclipse,” “Harry Potter 7.1,” and “Inception” may have something to say about that.

Adam Sandler’s “Grown Ups” had a bang-up weekend, bringing in an estimated $41 million in 3,534 theaters. Its opening is normal for Sandler, whose “Click,” “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” and “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” all opened between $34 million and $42 million during their respective summer bows. This pretty much ensures that “comedies” such as this and last year’s “Couple’s Retreat,” in which celeb actors band together to basically screw around for their own enjoyment at the expense of the general public’s intelligence, will continue to be green-lit by studios. While last year’s bittersweet, if patchy, “Funny People” was a costly box-office disappointment, “Grown Ups” may end up being Sandler’s 11th film to pass the $100 million mark in 13 years.

The news is not so good for Sandler’s fellow megastars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. America has fallen out of love with the ex-golden boy, whose newest movie, “Knight and Day,” grossed a paltry (for Cruise) $21 million in 3,098 theaters. It is perhaps the most notable failure of his career, as it really indicates that audiences are done with his running quickly while waving a gun shtick. It’s very low gross is a bad sign for next year’s “Mission: Impossible IV,” whose budget has not yet been released (and will likely be scaled back from an estimated $150 million) and whose production has not yet begun. I don’t know, Tom, maybe it’s time you take a risk? Work with a notable director who can really kick your ass and get a good performance out of you. It’s not like you need to add to your biggy bank, so why not?

In other holdovers, “The Karate Kid” continues to be one of the biggest hits of the summer, dropping 49 percent in its third weekend for a $15 million haul in the face of stiff competition. It now has more than tripled its $40 million budget, and a sequel is naturally in the works.

Fox’s $110 million would-be blockbuster re-boot “The A-Team” is falling hard, dropping 59 percent in its third frame for a $6 million take to bring its total to just $63 million. “Get Him to the Greek” will end up right around “Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s” $63 million total, having brought in $54 million through four weeks. “Shrek Forever After” has been assaulted by the Pixar juggarnaut, thank God, and now stands at $229 million through six weeks and will end up being the lowest-grossing entry in the series, falling way short of the original’s $267 million take in 2001.

“Prince of Persia” is officially the biggest video game adaptation ever, but at a budget of $200 million, its $86 million gross through five weeks certifies it as one of the biggest flops of the year, although it has $300 million in the bank worldwide. Thus far, summer’s biggest flop is “Jonah Hex,” which grossed an out-and-out pathetic $1.6 million in its second weekend, falling a staggering 70 percent. You reap what you sow, Warner Brothers. This is what happens when you slash a 115-page script down to a 73-minute final product and refuse to even release a trailer until seven weeks before the film's release. It has amassed just $9 million in 10 days against a $47 million budget.

In the indy circuit, Alain Resnais’s return to theaters after a four-year absence was the highest-grossing limited release of the weekend, bringing in $35,700 in five theaters for a respectable $7,140 per theater average (PTA). The highest PTA of the weekend goes to Oliver Stone’s wide-ranging documentary about the South American socio-political climate “South of the Border,” which brought in a stellar $21k in one theater. The critically lauded “Restrepo” scored an impressive $30k in two theaters, and will expand over the next several weeks.