U.S Box Office Report - 6th - 8th June 2008

1. Kung Fu Panda - $60M - $60M
2. You Don't Mess With the Zohan - $40M - $40M
3. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - $22.8M - $253M
4. Sex and the City - $21.3M - $99.2M
5. The Strangers - $9.2M - $37.6M
6. Iron Man - $7.5M - $288.8M
7. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - $5.5M - $125.8M
8. What Happens In Vegas - $3.4M - $72.2M
9. Baby Mama - $0.779M - $57.9M
10. Made of Honor - $0.555M - $44.6M

Kung Fu Panda hits the bigtime for Dreamworks animation. With it being June, some schools in the US have already finished for the summer giving the film a slightly higher Friday and a slightly lower Sunday. With Shrek The Third ruling last summer and Bee Movie doing well in November, Dreamworks needed something to jump in and out quick before Pixar unleashes Wall-E. They've got the Madagascar sequel lined up for November and Shrek aside, Kung Fu Panda is the biggest opening for a Dreamworks Animation production.


The film features Jack Black as the voice of Po, a lazy panda who finds himself the subject of an ancient prophecy, thrusting him into a world of Kung Fu to help save his villiage. Dreamworks assembled a pretty impressive cast as along side Black we have Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian Mcshane, Seth Rogen and Jackie Chan, to name but a few. It might even have scored higher were it not seeing some strong competition from Adam Sandler. Panda needed a strong start as it'll face two new movies next weekend, The Incredible Hulk & The Happening, but for now, it rules the weekend with ease.Adam Sandler returned a littler earlier this year with You Don't Mess With The Zohan, a comedy about a Mossad agent who decides to fake his death so he can go to New York and start a new life as a hairdresser. Initial trailers weren't too inspiring but it did have an ace up its sleeve in the guise of uber-writer Judd Apatow.

Zohan opens slightly higher than a couple of Sandler's recent films (Chuck & Larry did $34M, Click did $40M) but falls just short of being a record opening weekend for him, that honour still goes to 2004's The Longest Yard with $47M. How Zohan goes from here will be interesting - it'll face the two new releases next weekend and may well be more affected by them than Kung Fu Panda, to whom it lost a good portion of business this weekend. Furthermore, it wasn't a cheap film, weighing in with a $90M budget, so it could do with a drop next weekend of less than 50%. It certainly won't give Sandler anything to worry about - he's already got another film finished and a second in production with Apatow in the writing and directing chair. Zohan marks Sandler's ninth film to open with more than $34M.

Having taken a battering last Friday from Sex and the City, Indiana Jones has a better weekend-weekend drop in its third frame of release (49%). By Friday it had crossed the half a billion dollars mark in combined global box office with Japan being the only major foreign market yet to receive the film. It should see $300M in another couple of weekends providing it's not hit too hard by any of the upcoming releases but it is doubtful that Jones, now entering the slow down phase, will be able to catch Iron Man's still rising total. In the global market, Indiana Jones is performing slightly better than Iron Man but domestically the film still has nearly $40M to go to surpass its rival.

Last weekend's epic winner was Sex and the City, which saw a hell of a tumble in its Friday-Friday takes - a whopping 73%, making SatC one the heaviest front loaded movies ever. Final figures from last weekend revealed that while the film had done incredibly well, it's weekend take had dipped quite severely on the Saturday. Thankfully for the film, it has continued to see some decent money during the week with near consistent $5M takes for each weekday save for Friday. Combined global box office sees it with over $122M and the sequel clauses on the contracts are already being bought into play. It terms of weekend falls, it's performing similar to another TV adaptation, 2007's The Simpsons movie, but unlike that film which opened at the tail end of the summer, SatC still has to survive most of June and July. It may see $100M this weekend once final numbers are issued.

The Strangers is off a not-bad-at-all, for the genre, 55% in its second weekend of the release. Having already recouped its production budget last weekend, The Strangers is now sailing high and happy to score any remaining box office once all the bigger hitters have taken their share. It'll have another couple of weekends in the top ten before heading to a lucrative life on DVD.

Iron Man, now in its sixth weekend of release is still doing decent business, this being only the first weekend where it hasn't made double figures. It's edging closer and closer to that $300M and should just be lucky enough to see it before leaving the top ten. As mentioned last weekend, it's still too early to call given the wealth of releases to come in the next two months but there's every chance that Iron Man could finish as the biggest film of the summer, if not 2008. If only Prince Caspian could be so lucky. While it crossed $100M in the US and $200M with combined global box office, it's still a huge way short of the $296M seen by The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Furthermore, while Caspian will stay in the top ten next weekend, it's doubtful we'll see it there the weekend after. A huge disappointment for Disney & Walden Media which will draw serious doubt over The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Three comedies round us out this weekend. What Happens in Vegas is easily out in front and should finish up with around $90M (and over $200M globally). Baby Mama and Made of Honor seem to have been in the charts for a lifetime but their time will be up by next Friday.

Next weekend sees the release of The Incredible Hulk, a film that got a bad rap from its trailers but appears to be receiving some strong word of mouth. If only The Happening could claim the same thing...