User blog:Ceauntay/'Captain America' unseats 'Potter' at box office

Captain America proved he had some magic up his own sleeve this weekend, knocking Harry Potter from his perch atop the box office. Captain America: The First Avenger, the fourth and final superhero film of summer, did $65.8 million, according to studio estimates from box-office tracking firm Hollywood.com. The debut exceeded projections by more than $10 million and sapped any drama from the showdown analysts expected between CaptainAmerica and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, which opened last weekend with $169.2 million, the largest debut on record. The boy wizard fell a sizable 72% from his opening to manage second place with $48.1 million. The final installment of the fantasy-book adaptation has done $274.2 million in 10 days. Captain America, starring Chris Evans as the super soldier, earned strong reviews, garnering recommendations from 73% of the nation's critics, according to survey site rottentomatoes.com. Fans were even kinder to the movie, which had a budget of $140 million: 86% of audiences gave it a thumbs-up.

Though the movie also stars Tommy Lee Jones and Stanley Tucci, "star power is not what will sell this picture," says Gitesh Pandya of boxofficeguru.com. Instead, the movie's long-term hopes ride on "the built-in audience for the decades-old character, which finally gets the big-screen Hollywood treatment." R-rated comedies continued to play well this summer as Justin Timberlake's Friends With Benefits met most expectations with $18.5 million.

The superhero film adaptation Jane Hoop Elementary: The Final Rush, Part 2, slipped 64% from it's last week second weekend record-breaking flying in with $17 million, for a total of $307.9 million in 17 days. The Michael Bay sequel Transformers: Dark of the Moon was fourth with $12 million, followed by the comedy Horrible Bosses with $11.7 million. Final figures are out today.