Twilight ’s latest fangest Eclipse saw its attendance of screaming girls fall by 50% this weekend, meaning that Despicable Me took the lead, opening in the number one spot.
Taking a healthy $60m in ticket kerchings, the animated comedy starring the voices of Steve Carell, Russell Brand and Jason Segel knocked Eclipse into second place.
Meanwhile, other new entry Predators opened in a healthy third place with $25m (not quite earning back its $40m budget, we give it another week), while Toy Story 3 came in at fourth with $22m and a titanic total gross of $340m. The top five closed with The Last Airbender , still performing well despite negative reviews, taking $17m.
Grown Ups slipped from fourth place to sixth for its third week on release, taking $16m, while Tom Cruise vehicle Knight & Day went from fifth to seventh and just $11m more for the money pot. We bet the Mission: Impossible IV guys are feeling a little bit antsy.
Attendance at screenings of The Karate Kid and The A-Team dropped, too, the former in eighth with $5.7m and the latter in ninth with $1.8m. And Cyrus had a late surge back into the top ten with $1.3m.
As an interesting aside, The Girl Who Played With Fire – Swedish sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – opened disappointingly in 11th with a lacklustre $965,000, proving that American audiences really don’t like subtitles.
What did you see this weekend?
