U.S Box Office Report - 1st - 3rd June 2007

1. Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End - $43.8M - $216M
2. Knocked Up - $29.2M - $29.2M
3. Shrek the Third - $26.7M - $254M
4. Mr. Brooks - $10M - $10M
5. Spider-Man 3 - $7.5M - $318M
6. Waitress - $2M - $9.4M
7. Bug - $1.2M - $6M
8. Gracie - $1.3M - $1.3M
9. 28 Weeks Later -  $1.2M - $26.5M
10. Disturbia - $1.1M - $76M

Pirates 3 retains the top spot this weekend but is off by a huge amount - something that happened to both Spiderman 3 and Shrek The Third in their second weekends on the charts. Pirates 3 is an enigma because it's making money, it took the international box office record last weekend, but it's not making money as fast as Pirates 2 and with this weekend's total it's already slowing down at quite an alarming rate. While it's crossed $200M this weekend questions are already being asked as to whether it'll cross the $300M mark. Next weekend will see three more movies added to the pot as summer starts to speed up.

Unlike last year, Pirates 3 doesn't have a nice clear run through the end of summer - it's got one of the toughest onslaughts of films still to face. It's international box office is helping calm nerves (and let's not be silly about this, it's no flop, the second movie's huge profit probably paid for the entire production and advertising of this movie) and it'll probably finish the year with around $750M (but compare that to the $1 billion made by Pirates 2 and you can see where the 'disappointing' talk originates from).

Our first new entry this weekend is the comedy 'Knocked Up', from the makers of The 40 Year Old Virgin. The film has opened with nearly $9M more than Virgin did two years ago and will be into profit by Monday night. Knocked Up had been receiving some really strong word of mouth for a few months now and it actually reviewed much better than any of the previous week's box office champions. It's also the first out and out R-rated comedy for a while and appealed strongly to both men and women, something it needed to do to counter any loss in box office from that R-rating. It'll be interesting to see how the movie goes on to perform in the coming weekends - Virgin finished up with $109M so estimates for Knocked Up should come in around the $130M mark, a figure that is achievable thanks to the broad appeal.

Shrek The Third crosses the $250M mark this weekend but will see direct competition next weekend from Surf's Up. Shrek The Third should overtake the first Shrek movie's total box office next weekend but probably won't be troubling the $401M take of Shrek 2. The movie is still to open in a large number of overseas markets where it should easily surpass whatever its final domestic take ends up being.

Kevin Costner serial killer drama Mr Brooks flops into fourth place. The take is about the average for a Costner movie these days and will find itself quickly forgotten in two weeks time (see also Bruce Willis' Perfect Stranger). The movie was originally scheduled for release in March and it might have done better had it been left there. The movie also stars another star on the comeback trail, Demi Moore, who probably should have chose a Ghost sequel over this.

Spiderman 3 has slowed right down now and may actually leave the chart within the next two weeks. The film sits at $318M and will end up being the lowest grossing of the series in the US. On a global scale factoring in US takings the movie is the most successful of the series, currently sitting at $843M. Like Pirates 3, no one will lose their job over that sort of figure.

Strong word of mouth (and lack of releases) have helped score Waitress another $2M this weekend from just 605 screens. The film now sits at just under $10M in terms of total box office. It's done better in its fifth weekend than the new release Gracie has done on its debut. Gracie, a US style Bend It Like Beckham, opened on 1100 screens and took just $1.3M.

Bug drops four places in only its second weekend and has yet to make $10M from its 1600 location tally. No real idea why it was launched in the summer or up against Pirates 3 - but there's a strong chance it won't be troubling the top ten by next weekend. Sad considering the movie scored some half decent reviews and was seen as something as a return to form for William Friedkin.

28 Days Later sits at number nine in its fourth weekend of release. It's still $20M short of the box office of 28 Days Later and will probably be seen as yet another disappointment (theatrically at least) for the newly formed Fox Atomic label, who had previously fallen short with Turistas (Paradise Lost in the UK) and The Hills Have Eyes 2.

Rounding out the top ten and having been on the charts for an amazing 8 weekends is Disturbia. The $20M movie should see over $80M when its domestic run comes to an end.