U.S Box Office Report - 9th - 11h June 2006

1. Cars - $60.1M - $60.1M
2. The Break-Up - $20.5M - $74.1M
3. X-Men: The Last Stand - $15.6M - $202M
4. The Omen - $15.4M - $35.7M
5. The Da Vinci Code - $10.4M - $189M
6. Over the Hedge - $10.2M - $130M
7. A Prairie Home Companion - $4.67M - $4.67M
8. Mission: Impossible III - $3.04M - $128M
9. RV - $2M - $65M
10. Poseidon - $1.84M - $54.9M

EDIT Now that final numbers have been released we see that Cars didn't have quite as big a weekend as first thought while Da Vinci performed just a little better than Over The Hedge. Da Vinci is still going strong overseas and has so far taken $642M worldwide including US takings. It currently sits at no.30 in worldwide takings.

As expected the latest movie from Pixar easily slides into the top spot. A strong opening weekend (the 2nd biggest June opening after Harry Potter 3) but not Pixar's best by quite a margin. Usually, a new Pixar movie will break the weekend gross record set by the previous Pixar movie but with Cars, that run comes to an end. But lets not be too down on the movie - it did fantastic business, and that can't be argued with.

The Break-Up took a 47% hit but still managed to take $20M+ and has now easily recouped its production budget. The movie certainly upset the box office last weekend by removing X-3 from the top spot (something Cars was expected to do). The movie has now taken $72M and will certainly go on to be the most successful romantic comedy this year so far (the current top rom-com for this year is Failure to Launch).

X3 crosses the $200M mark but sees another huge drop from last weekend. The movie has performed well and should easily surpass the total gross of X2 ($214M) but it's still be heralded as a disappointment in some quarters. The two previous movies, while not taking as much money, had much more staying power. X3 is the first movie to gross over $200M this year.

The Omen, which opened earlier in the week to cash in on the 6/6/06 date had a very strong opening, the biggest ever for a Tuesday, but then took quite a hit for the rest of the week. Analyst put this down to the fact that anyone who wanted to see the movie went on the first day. It has a week taking of $35M and has recouped its production budget. Expect another big drop next weekend. Like many horror films, it should perform well on DVD. Remember that many of the main cinema going demographic weren't even alive when the original was released.

With competition from Cars, Over the Hedge lost its hold on the under 10 market and lost 50% from its taking of last weekend. The movie has been a slow burner and has quietly taken good, if not impressive, box office since its release a month ago.

The Da Vinci code slips two spaces and still sits quite short of the $200M mark. It will certainly pass that before leaving the top ten. Elsewhere the movie continues to perform amazingly well, having taken over $400M in overseas territories. The movie currently sits at a $597M total.

A quick note - the previous four movies could still swap places (3rd with 4th & 5th with 6th) once the final estimates come through on Monday afternoon. Only an estimated $1,000 seperated Da Vinci & Over the Hedge.

The last new release in the top ten goes to the new Robert Altman ensemble. The movie opened on just 760 screens and saw a strong per screen taking. It's a pretty good tally but hard to compare to his previous movies as they all opened in various numbers of screens (amongst his best openings were Dr T & the Women which opened to $5.5M from about 1500 screens and Popeye which took $6.1M from 901 screens).

MI3 will possibly see its last weekend in the charts and managed $3M from its hugely reduced number of screens. The movie has cleared $320M in total ticket sales. Curiously this movie performed much better than Collateral, Last Samurai & Vanilla Sky, and will beat Minority Report by the end of its run. The reason it's being classed as a flop is purely down to the genre, the star & the franchise history itself. Any other movie would have been happy of this gross but MI3 needed to be performing more like X3.

The top ten is rounded out by RV, which is now in its seventh week on the chart! It's quietly taken money each weekend and faced off against much bigger & better movies. Meanwhile Poseidon continues to be the biggest non-event since last year's The Island. This is Petersen's poorest showing for a movie since 1991's Shattered, after which he had a strong showing with In The Line of Fire, Troy, The Perfect Storm, Outbreak & Airforce One.