As if there was ever any doubt, this week belonged to Michael Bay. Transformers 2 helped amp up the box office total over 9% more than at this time last year when Wall-E and Wanted were the big draws. Ugh. Wanted. Horrible images of Common looking out of place standing around real actors. Make it stop!
1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen- $112M/$201M
I said last week that if you spit you're likely to hit a theatre showing Transformers, and I wasn't far off. Playing at over 10,000 screens(!!) this thing took off like a shot and very nearly bested The Dark Knight's record opening of $203M. By comparison, the previous film in the series took nearly two weeks to cross $200M, so...yeah, I'd say this was a bit more successful. It's a little disgusting that this is already about a week away from surpassing Up as the top grosser of the year. What's more, it fired in the highest grossing IMAX opening ever at $14.4M, ensuring that this thing will be lighting up Jumbo-Trons probably til the end of summer. Amazing first week, and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this was the most successful 80's toy tie-in of all time. That is until the Silverhawks film comes out!
2. The Proposal- $18.5M/$69M
Dropping nearly 45% from last week, the Sandra Bullock comedy that looks like a relic from the 90's probably benefitted as a bit of counter-programming to the robotic rampage of Transformers. I would imagine that the audience for this film is the same as went to see My Sister's Keeper, which debuts a bit further down the list. As it goes, $69M in 10 days is pretty darn good.
3. The Hangover- $17.2M/$183M
Tied with Star Trek for the smallest drop of the week, the Vegas comedy only slipped around 35%. The reason for the phenomenal success of this film? Everybody likes to watch babies get hit in the head by car doors. I paid to see it twice, actually.
4. Up- $13M/$250M
Up will take the title for shortest reign as champion ever, as it finally surpassed Star Trek as the highest grossing film of the year. It'll probably lose that title this weekeng. Not even Ed Asner stands a chance against Optimus Prime, although it's a fight I'd love to see. He can certainly take Shia Lebeouf.
5. My Sister's Keeper- $12M
Not everybody wanted to watch things explode and gratuitious shots of Megan Fox's arse. I cried during some of the duller moments of Transformers, but apparently a lot of people wanted to cry for another reason entirely. The film about a girl dying of cancer, who's sister was bred to be her genetic donor, pulled in a substantial amount even though it was only showing at around 2,000 sites.
6. Year One- $5.8M/$32.3M
It's actually faring worse than Land of the Lost now. They should've held this movie til October or something. Or better yet, held it indefinitely. It dropped 70% friggin percent since last week, meaning nobody spread good word about it.
7. The Taking of Pelham 123- $5.4M/$53.4M
I'm struck by how irrelevant this movie became so quickly. I'm sure it'll do great on DVD, but yet again another "adult oriented" film goes belly up in record time. Big name stars just don't mean anything anymore.
8. Star Trek- $3.61M/$246M
Just lost it's title to Up as top grosser of the year, but it doesn't matter. The franchise re-imagining has been a remarkable success and bodes well for sequels down the line. As long as Tyler Perry's nowhere to be found, that is. Unless he's found underneath a crashed Romulan warship or something. That'd be cool.
9. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian- $3.5M/$163M
10. Away We Go- $1.68M/$4.06M
The Maya Rudolph/John Krasinski dramedy finally went wide release this week, opening at 495 sites pulling in a healthy $3,390 average. Unless there's a massive turnaround, this won't come close to matching the total box office of director Sam Mendes' most recent film, Revolutionary Road. Obviously this film doesn't have film's acting pedigree or exposure.
) has been offered a role as well.
, but I feel like the film is dated and appealing only to a certain audience. 
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