Spider-Man 3 opened on a high last week, smashing box office records around the world and becoming the year’s latest big success. But as the week unfurled and the less-than-positive word of mouth started to poison audience attendance, the web-slinger starts to look a little less golden. Don’t get us wrong, a $60 million second weekend is nothing to be sneezed at, but Spidey hasn’t snatched first-week records from Pirates 2 or Shrek 2 and with the sudden drop-off, box office prognosticators are thinking it might not outdo the second Spider-adventure. But it does have $242 million in the US domestic bank alone, so Sony will be happy.
Opening much more weakly than expected, rage virus sequel 28 Weeks Later arrived in second with $10 million. Despite solid advertising, it made about the same amount in its first weekend as the original film, but that launched in a thousand fewer cinemas.
Also less than impressive was Georgia Rule, starring Lindsay Lohan, Jane Fonda and Felicity Huffman. A confused tone meant people didn’t care for it at it debuted in third place with $5.9 million.
In fourth, Disturbia held up well, snagging $4.8 million in its fifth weekend for a healthy total to date of $66 million. Fifth place went to the weekend’s third new opening – Larry The Cable Guy’s war comedy Delta Farce. In keeping with his low-grossing film performance, the new entry made just $3.5 million. But that’s still better than the week’s other new attempt at making US audiences laugh: Zach Braff/Jason Bateman starrer The EX flopped hard, failing to crack the top 10 at all, and taking in just $1.3 million.
Sixth place was Fracture, with Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling taking in $2.9 million for their legal drama, with a running total of $30.9 million. The Invisible was see-through at seventh, making just $2.2 million this weekend and $15.5 million so far.
Much healthier is Hot Fuzz, with the Shaun boys easily topping the zom-rom-com’s US total of $13 million with an $18.9 million barnstormer. The cop comedy actually moved up a place in the top 10 this week. That’s much better than dodgy psychic vision thriller Next, which probably cost millions more to pump out. Nic Cage’s latest has taken just $14.6 million so far.
And finally, Meet The Robinsons clings on to one final week in the top 10 before a certain green ogre arrives this weekend to claim the family business. Robinsons has earned $94 million so far.
