Shrek Wins Another Weekend By Default

Despite being considered a pretty big disappointment Shrek Forever After has won its third straight weekend this time pulling in $25 million with the competition relatively flat. The four new openers really didn’t even provide much of a challenge. The box office crown will finally change hands next week though with the release of The A-Team and The Karate Kid.

The strongest openers were Get Him to the Greek and Killers with $17.4 million and $16.1 million respectively. Greek came in right around expectations and audience response has trended positive. Killers though was not screened for critics and has gotten subsequently panned. It was not expected to even do as well as it did but considering its $70 million budget it remains in bad shape. In my predictions I cited Bounty Hunter as the most recent comparable movie and it looks a segment of the movie going public enjoys going out for romantic comedy-action hybrids with bickering leads regardless of how bad the movie might be.

The other two openers were weak with Marmaduke making $11.3 million and just $7.4 million coming in for Splice. Neither were expected to be big hits but the number on Splice came in below expectations in a genre that has seen recent success at the box office. The advertising probably hurt its potential by making it seem as though it was a horror film when it really had a completely different tone and direction that made it unique.