For a third time, the lure of giant space robots doing battle on Earth proved irresistible for audiences over the holiday weekend, as Transformers: Dark Of The Moon enjoyed the year’s biggest opening numbers, scoring $97.5 million from Friday to Sunday, and a gaudy $175.6 million since its debut on Wednesday. And it all happened despite following up the roundly reviled Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, and being terrible, incoherent mess in its own right. Happily, Brandon Gray at Box Office Mojo has provided a slightly less awed assessment of its performance: According to Gray, Dark Of The Moon is the ninth highest-grossing six-day opening ever—how’s that for qualified success?—and the $175.6 million fell well below the $214.9 collected by Revenge Of The Fallen in the same frame. No doubt Michael Bay is curled up in a fetal ball somewhere, weeping over his relative failure.
Still, Transformers 3 left its box-office companions like the Decepticons rampaging through Chicago. Cars 2, the worst-reviewed Pixar movie ever, dropped 60% from its first weekend, an unusually steep number for family-friendly entertainment and unheard of for Pixar, which even at its worst loses 40%. Poor notices also did nothing to help the Tom Hanks-Julia Roberts pair-up Larry Crowne, a seemingly foolproof piece of counterprogramming that opened all the way back in fourth with $13.1 million, and the Selena Gomez vehicle Monte Carlo, which took sixth with $7.4 million. In brighter news, Bridesmaids continues to be the summer’s most durable word of mouth hit, officially surpassing Knocked Up to become the most successful comedy yet to emerge from the Judd Apatow factory. It’s still in the Top 10 (#9, with $3.65 million) and has grossed $153 million to date.
For more detailed numbers, visit Box Office Mojo.