That was fast! Twilight Eclipse was bested at the U.S. box office this weekend by the little animated film that could, Steve Carrell’s Despicable Me. The PG film earned a whopping $60 million, a full $20 million above estimates. It was thought that Eclipse might just hold out for another week on top, but family fare with a lucrative 3D offering proved more popular. It didn’t hurt that it was so hot in most parts of America that a trip to the movies was the best option.
Eclipse didn’t collapse. Despicable Me just plain towered over it.
The Steve Carell CGI toon ruled the weekend box office with an estimated $60.1 million Friday-Sunday debut.
Eclipse slipped to second ($33.4 million)—and, at the same time, rose to first.
The sequel is now the top-grossing member of the Twilight Saga, having passed New Moon. The race is still close, but at the same point in their releases, Eclipse has the lead: $237 million domestically to $235 million.
Other box-office doings:
Predators, the weekend’s other major new release, had a nifty debut. The $40 million action-sci-fi legacy act bowed with $25.3 million. Among Predator movies—and there are five of them now—that’s the second-highest opening. Toy Story 3 ($22 million; $340.2 million overall domestic) stands poised today to become the highest-grossing Disney/Pixar movie ever—a that’s-saying-a-lot category if ever there was one. (The previous No. 1? Finding Nemo.) Eclipse ticket sales were down about 50 percent from last weekend. We could say that, by comparison, New Moon fell off 70 percent, but New Moon was a Friday opener, and Eclipse was a Wednesday opener, so there’s really no comparison. Worldwide, Eclipse’s haul is now at $456 million overall.
[From Eclipse]
Despicable Me is getting somewhat mixed but mostly positive reviews, with most critics calling it delightful and some saying it’s pedestrian with bad jokes. Given the kind of bad kids movies that I’ve become immune to, (Marmaduke, Furry Vengeance and Tooth Fairy come to mind) I’m sure it was a welcome change for many parents. Now that higher quality family friendly movies are consistently cleaning up at the box office, I hope we’ll see many more.
Kaiser and I went to go see Get Him To The Greek this weekend and we loved it! I know it’s been out for a while, but if you can still catch it it’s well worth seeing and is just hysterical. We laughed through the whole thing. It’s definitely not a movie for anyone under 17-18 though I’m sure younger teens have seen worse. It’s grossed $60 million at the box office.
Have any of you seen Despicable Me and is it suitable for a six year old? I’m careful about taking my son to PG movies, but some are ok.
Here’s the trailer:
Photos thanks to AllMoviePhoto
I took my six year old son to see it Friday and he giggled through the whole thing. It was a cute movie, but I am not one to criticize children’s movies because I am no longer a child. As a parent, I have sat through truly awful movies and this was not one of them.
I went to see this movie, and it’s very cute. Your 6 year old would probably like it. There were quite a few very small children in my theater giggling away.
That last picture looks hilarious. As a ypung adult I might have to see this just because I need some fun. Shooting minions out of a gun is funny.
I took my 5 and 3 year old to see this Saturday, and they both laughed throughout the whole film…they loved it! I loved it too, I thought it was heart warming and really sweet, not all what I expected when I went into the theater!
I took my 2.5 year old and 4 year old to see it this weekend along with my husband. All four of us loved it! We all laughed and we all enjoyed the (okay, admittedly sometimes juvenile) humor.
It’s so fluffy I could die!!! Went with my BF & his kids (5 & 10) & we all thought it was great.
Expected thing to happen. Gross a lot in the first couple of days and than fall back (Twilight).
I saw this trailer last year in the USA (I think it was attached to Half Blood Prince). Looked funny back then. If I want to see it in cinema’s I’ve to wait for it until October 13 (Netherlands)
Looks like a cute, fun movie.
Given the enormous hype, I was expecting a far better opening for Pointy Nose’s movie.
2 jokes with the word “fart” in them and comic violence (disintegration rays etc). I think that The Road Runner was more violent. Take him, take him.
Really I don’t know if this movie is good or bad, but any movie would top Eclipse, this are the only book based movies that are better than the orinigal book. That is all one person has to know about the hole Twilight thing.
Oh, that looks adorably funny. My 3 year old son watched the trailer and is now dying to see it lol.
I’m gonna have to go with “pedestrian with bad jokes”. The trailer looked great, the set-up is almost like a classic Roald Dahl, but the whole thing was kinda ‘off’. At one point I wondered if it was just me, but the whole packed theatre was silent through 95% of the “jokes”. (The shortest of the 3 girls has most of the lines that actually elicit a laugh, the best being “It’s so fluffy I could die!”, and only cause she’s so cute, not cause the lines are all that inspired.)
It’s a great concept, but badly written/edited. They have a bunch of redundant/undeveloped plotlines [Gru’s Mom was derisive of his dreams; (spoiler) the bank manager is the other bad guy’s dad; the M character can walk fine sometimes, other times not, they have 2 flight chase scenes; the “steal the moon” thing, a magical novel idea, is rushed and wasted in the last third of the movie; etc.]. The three little kids are also never fleshed out as individuals; they’re just 3 cute girls in different outfits.
As to your six year old, there was one really inappropriate moment (and to make it worse, treated in a casual, in-passing kind of way), when one of the girls locks herself in a spiked sarcophagus at Gru’s house and red fluid leaks out for several grisly seconds (it turns out to be her juice box). Still, there was a prolonged gasp of horror from the whole audience.
I’ll be sticking with Pixar in the future. They’re funny, smart, innovative in their plots, and find the humanity in their stories. I’d wait for the rental on Despicable Me.
My daughter wanted to watch both movies and she did.
But, I believe that I buy despicable me dvd for her before I would buy Eclipse.
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