Something for everyone this week… a big variety fom romance to action, animation to sci-fi, musical to comedy…

New at Theaters (Friday): “Bandslam”, “District 9″, “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard”, “Ponyo”, “The Time Traveler’s Wife”

Limited Released in Grand Rapids market: none this week

Moving to Woodland Mall this week ($4.00 shows): “Up”, “Food, Inc.”, “The Stoning Of Soraya M”

Best Bet(s): This will come down to the type of movie you want… if its an “Old School”/”Hangover” type of comedy (not neccesarily as good), then see “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard”… if its a romantic drama, then “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is probably for you… if sci-fi/acton is more your thing, then see: “District 9″… if its a teen musical movie, see “Bandslam”.

 CLICK HERE TO FIND A MOVIE SHOWTIME

New on DVD (Tuesday): “17 Again”, “I Love You, Man” 

Best Bet(s): Guys will love “I Love You, Man” and women might like it too, its my favorite bromance movie in awhile… Zac Efron fans will flock to “17 Again”. 

Next Week at Theaters: “Inglorious Basterds”, “Post Grad”, “Shorts”

Next Week on DVD: “Hannah Montana: The Movie”, “The Last House on the Left”, “Surveillance”, “Tyson”

MY REVIEWS OF OTHER MOVIES CURRENTLY PLAYING IN THEATERS OR AVAILABLE TO RENT/BUY: 

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“Up” floats high above the weekend box office competition

“Up” beat other newcomer “Drag Me To Hell” easily, but its estimated $68.20 million also beat last week’s number one “Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian” ($16.63 million) by more than 2-to-1.  “Star Trek” is still slowing its descent, losing the least of its audience and falling slower than the rest of the top 10 movies… a trend not as strong, but reminiscent of “Iron Man” last summer.  We’ll have to see if “Star Trek” can hold on another 16 weeks and/or earn another $118 million to match “Iron Man”… or if this summer’s blockbusters are just too much to keep it around long enough.

Overall, the weekend pulled in an estimated $162.99 million, that would make it the 3rd best weekend so far, but down 4% from the memorial day weekend that stands as the biggest weekend of 2009 (actual $169.81 million).

 TOP MOVIES AT WEEKEND BOX OFFICE (estimated results):
1. “Up” – $68.20 million (1st week)

2. “Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian” – $25.50 million  ($105.29 million total)
(2nd week, was #1 last week, lost 53% of audience from last week)

3. “Drag Me To Hell” – $16.63 million (1st week)

4. “Terminator Salvation” – $16.14 million
(2nd week, was #2 last week, lost 62% from last week)

5. “Star Trek” – $12.80 million  ($209.50 million total)
(4th week, was #3 last week, lost 44% from last week)

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“Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian” has a longer title and made more money than “Terminator Salvation” at Memorial weekend box office

“Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian” clobbered “Terminator Salvation”… by more than $10 million during the 4-day holiday weekend (Friday-Monday), “Night at the Museum 2″ pulled in a estimated $70.0 million while “Terminator 4″ made an estimated $53.8 million.

Last week’s number one “Angels & Demons” dropped to 4th with $27.7 million… while “Star Trek” shows its staying power, actually moving up one spot to 3rd at $29.4 million.  The worst movie of the year, “Dance Flick” opened in 5th with $13 million.

Friday-Sunday of Memorial weekend was the biggest weekend of 2009 so far, with the top 12 movies pulling in $169.44 million… a 29% increase over last weekend and nearly $5 million more than the previous best of $164.76 million during the 3rd weekend of January (that included “Paul Blart: Mall Cop”).

 TOP MOVIES AT WEEKEND BOX OFFICE (4-day estimated results):
1. “Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian” – $70.00 million (1st week)

2. “Terminator Salvation” – $53.83 million (1st week)

3. “Star Trek” – $29.40 million
(3rd week, was #2 last week, lost 32% of audience from last week)

4. “Angels & Demons” - $27.70 million
(2nd week, was #1 last wek, lost 40% from last week)

5. “Dance Flick” - $13.10 million (1st week)

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“Angels & Demons” barely beats “Star Trek” to top the weekend box office

“Angels & Demons” was number one with $48.00 million, but the second Dan Brown novel-turned-movie made almost $30 million less than “The DaVinci Code” (2006), which opened with $77.07 million.

It didn’t take long for “Star Trek” to crack the $100 million mark… with $147.61 million, its now the biggest earner ever for the franchise… passing the $109.71 million mark held by “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (1986).

“Monsters vs. Aliens” is still holding strong in its 8th week of release, actually moving up one spot from 8th to 7th as the rest of the field mostly moved down one spot.    Overall, the weekend earnings ($132 million) were down for a second straight weekend… 7% lower… but next weekends’ big openings of action franchiser ”Terminator Salvation” and the family friendly ”Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” should turn that trend around.

 TOP MOVIES AT WEEKEND BOX OFFICE (estimated results):
1. “Angels & Demons” - $48.00 million (1st week)

2. “Star Trek” – $43.00 million
(2nd week, was #1 last week, lost 43%of audience from last week)

3. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” – $14.80 million
(3rd week, was #2 last week, lost 44% of audience from last week)

4. “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” – $6.86 million
(3rd week, was #3 last week, lost 33% of audience from last week)

5. “Obsessed”  – $4.55 million
(4th week, was #4 last week, lost 31% of audience from last week)

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“Star Trek” becomes the biggest opening for a Star Trek movie and is on its way to being the 2nd to crack $100 million

(Updated 5/12/09) With $72.50 million “Star Trek” becomes the biggest opening weekend ever for the franchise and if you add in the $4 million on Thursday, its already the 5th highest grossing movie in the franchise, and easily on track to be just the 2nd to crack the $100 million mark. (See more on the Star Trek franchise at the box office below)

The comedy “Next Day Air” opened in 6th with just $4 million at the box office.

Returns for “The Chaos Experiment”, were limited at just two Grand Rapids area theaters over the weekend with just 225 tickets sold for the R-rated thriller.

Overall, the weekend offerings were actually down 6% at the box office from last weekend’s huge $150 million weekend.

 TOP MOVIES AT WEEKEND BOX OFFICE (estimated results):
1. “Star Trek” – $76.50 million (includes $4.0 million Thursday) (1st week)

2. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” – $27.00 million
(2nd week, was #1 last week, lost 68% of audience from last week)

3. “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” – $10.45 million
(2nd week, was #2 last week, lost 32% of audience from last week)

4. “Obsessed”  – $6.60 million
(3rd week, was #3 last week, lost 45% of audience from last week)

5. “17 Again” – $4.41 million
(4th week, was #4 last week, lost 30% from last week)

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“X-Men” give the box office a heroic boost of 46%

“X-Men Origins Wolverine” was easily number one at the weekend box office with $87 million, but didn’t make as much as expected ($95 million).  The romantic-comedy “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” debuted at 2nd with $15.33 million.  The animated action/adventure “Battle for Terra” was a distant 12th with just $1.06 million.

The weekend offerings gave the box office a 46% increase from last weekend, a big jumpstart to the summer movie season.

 TOP MOVIES AT WEEKEND BOX OFFICE (estimated results):
1. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” – $87.00 million (1st week)

2. “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” – $15.33 million (1st week)

3. “Obsessed”  – $12.20 million
(2nd week, was #1 last week, lost 57% of audience from last week)

4. “17 Again” – $6.36 million
(3rd week, was #2 last week, lost 45% from last week)

5. “Monsters vs. Aliens” – $5.80  million
(6th week, was #5 last week, lost 32% from last week)

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The thriller “Obsessed” topped last week’s number one “17 Again” by more than $17 million in the last weekend before the summer movie season begins.  The long delayed drama “The Soloist” (originally scheduled to release in November) opened in 4th, while “Fighting” was just behind “17 Again” in 3rd and the DisneyNature documentary “earth” was a close 5th.

The four new movies helped turn around a two week decline at the box office: the top 12 combined for nearly $104 million at the box office, a 3.6% increase from last weekend.

 TOP MOVIES AT WEEKEND BOX OFFICE (estimated results):
1. “Obsessed”  – $28.5 million (1st week)

2. “17 Again” – $11.67 million
(2nd week, was #1 last week, lost 51% of audience from last week)

3. “Fighting” – $11.44 million (1st week)

4. “The Soloist” – $9.72 million (1st week)

5. “Earth” – $8.55 million (1st week)

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Tweens, teens, and even older groups of moviegoers made Zac Efron and “17 Again” the number one movie by nearly $10 million.     The Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren, Rachael McAdams, Jeff Daniels, Jason Bateman, and Robin Wright Penn political thriller “State of Play” was 2nd with $14 million.   “Hannah Montana: The Movie”’s audience went to “17 Again”, pushing last week’s number one movie down to 4th place.  “Crank: High Voltage” debuted in 6th place with just $6 million.

But the bigger story here is that the box office was down 20% from last weekend, the 4th lowest weekend of the year’s 17 weekends so far.

 TOP MOVIES AT WEEKEND BOX OFFICE (estimated results):
1. “17 Again” – $24.06 million (1st week)

2. “State of Play” - $14.10 million (1st week)

3. “Monsters vs. Aliens” – $12.90  million
(4th week, was #3 last week, lost 41% from last week)

4. “Hannah Montana The Movie” – $12.67 million
(2nd week, was #1 last week, lost 61% from last week)

5. “Fast and Furious” – $12.29 million
(3rd week, was #2 last week, lost 55% of audience from last week)

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sorry for the delay, I should have done this abbreviated version Friday night or Saturday morning, but here it is with one day left in the weekend…

New at Theaters: “17 Again”, “Crank: High Voltage”, “State of Play”

New on DVD: “The Reader”, “The Spirit”, “Dark Matter”

BEST BETs: “17 Again” will be number one at the box office, but the best movie of the weeekend (“State of Play”), might not even make the top 2… and Jason Statham’s “Crank High Voltage” might struggle to make the top 5.  Kate Winslet’s Oscar winning performance in “The Reader” might be enough of a reason to rent the holocaust-era drama about a woman and her unusual facination with a much younger guy.  “The Spirit” didn’t do as well at the box office, but might be worth a look now if your looking for a “Sin City”-esque movie.

 CLICK HERE TO FIND A MOVIE SHOWTIME

Next Week at Theaters: “earth” (Wednesday), “Fighting”, “Obsessed”, “The Soloist”, “The Informers” (limited release)

Next Week on DVD: “Battlestar Galactica: Caprica”, “Frost/Nixon”, “Into the Blue 2: The Reef”, “The Last Word”, “Notorius”, “The Wrestler”