Box-Office Review: Superman tops but will Pirates prevail?

Warner Bros. Bryan Singer helmed ‘Superman Returns,’ after pulling in approximately $32 million from its two day early release June 28th (and pre-opening shows on evening of the 27th), coasted to an easy weekend haul of $52.1 million in over 4,000 theaters bringing its total take to $84.3 million.

Not a super performance by any means it did exceed that of ‘Batman Begins’ and Peter Jackson’s ‘King Kong’ in their opening five days.Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros.' executive vice president and general sales manager said they were looking at ‘Batman Begins’ as a benchmark and "‘Superman Returns’ defeated our expectations." Studio exit polling indicated that 58 percent of the audience was male and that those over and under 25 years old were equally represented. And according to L.A. Weekly columnist Nikki Finke, Warner Bros. is rushing to "retool" its marketing campaign in an effort to "stem the gay buzz surrounding" Superman. "As late as this week," Finke wrote, "new TV ads transformed [star Brandon] Routh from doe-eyed softie to macho techno-man of steel, borrowing heavily from other comic-books successes like Spider-Man and X-Men in its look and feel."While studio number crunchers expect ‘Superman’ to pull in over $100 million by the end of the Fourth of July weekend, they expect 2nd week numbers to drop off rapidly as Disney’s ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Curse’ opens on Friday, July 7th. Fox’s ‘The Devil Wear’s Prada’, starring Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep pulled in $27 million over the weekend in about 2,800 theaters. Fox's chief demographic were women who despite Warner’s hard sell romance between Superman and Lois Lane, failed to pull them away from Prada into Supe theaters.Dropping to third place, Adam Sandler's 'Click' which opened at #1 last weekend with $40 million, made less than half that in its second week, grossing $19.4 million to bring its total to just under $78 million.Disney/Pixar's animated comedy 'Cars' also dropped down two places to 4th with roughly $14 million, putting $182 million in the ‘till after four weeks in theatres.In fifth place, the Paramount/Nickelodeon comedy 'Nacho Libre,' starring Jack Black, also dropped 51%, taking in $6.2 million in its third weekend with its total gross nearing $65 million.While ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ was a stronger “chick flick", Warner Bros' romantic drama 'The Lake House,' starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, held up better than other movies, dropping less than 50% taking in $4.5 million - box office reaching $38.7 million after three weeks.Also in its third weekend, Universal’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift dropped three places to 7th, where it grossed another $4.4 million, bringing its total box office up to $51.7 million. Tyrese Gibson's urban gangster drama, 'Waist Deep,' took the biggest plunge in the Top 10, with $3.3 million, 65% less than its opening weekend take, and also dropping three positions. The Jennifer Aniston-Vince Vaughn comedy 'The Break-Up' made another $2.8 million this weekend. Its $110 million gross makes it the top non-animated comedy of the summer. Sony's controversial 'The Da Vinci Code,' starring Tom Hanks, held on to its #10 place with another $2.3 million for a total gross of $209.7 million. Two Fox sequels rounded out the Top 12 with 'X-Men: The Last Stand' making $2 million and 'Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties' making slightly less after each of them lost over 800 theatres this weekend. "X-Men" has grossed $228.5 million compared to "Garfield’s $21.5 million.The roughly $136 million earned by the Top 10 was more than the same weekend last year where Tom Cruise and Stephen Spielberg's 'War of the Worlds' dominated with just under $65 million on the 4th of July weekend.