Wiki News/Box Office Numbers: 'Sonic the Hedgehog' is king of the world

As expected Sonic X: Return to Soleanna beating The Dark Knight at the box office over the following weekend, opened at an extreme $167.4 million on its' opening in 4,391 theaters. This is a one sexy movie, and is already up to $412 million worldwide, killing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince's $394 million, thanks to Sonic's overseas opening of $245 million from only 32 territories. Meanwhile, Shrek Forever After took the number two spot for the third time in a row with $25.3 million at the box office averaging $5,768 per screening in 4,386 theaters. Audiences didn’t have much of a choice due to awful marketing from competeting films that had a chance to beat Shrek. DreamWorks and Paramount’s marketing for Shrek was relatively the same as Splice, Killers, and Get Him to the Greek. The latest Shrek in the film franchise won the box office again due to high-ticket prices and more screening runs than any newcomer this summer. This also means that the box office had yet another weak weekend run. Last year June the two top films opened with $88 million combined, while this years the two top films opened to a combined $43.5 million. Shrek Forever after has an estimated accumulation of $184 million.

Universal’s Get Him to the Greek took the second spot with $17.4 million averaging $6460 per screening in 2697 theaters. Despite a 75% approval rating on rottentomatoes.com the film had a lackluster weekend run. One of the man reasons for this is Universal’s marketing for the film, moviegoers didn’t really get to see what the film was capable of because all we saw on the tv spots was Russell Brand stabbing Jonah Hill with a adrenaline needle.

Killers also had a lackluster opening as it took the third spot with $16 million averaging $5,631 per screening in 2,859 theaters. The trailers for the film were not funny and seem uninspired as Katherine Heigl tried to be a ditzy spy wife while Aston Kutcher tried to be a funny assassin husband. Lionsgate’s latest action comedy had a 14% approval rating on rottentomatoes.com. The film company also had an aggressive marketing campaign on twitter as they tried to get their followers to see the film and to no avail.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time fell down to the fourth spot with $13.9 million. Disney’s latest live action film could not capitalize both the video game appeal and the appeal it tried to have like Pirates had. The film lost more than 53% of its business over the week and now has a ten-day gross of $59.4 million. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time cost approximately $200 million to produce.

Warner Brothers’ Sex in the City 2 fell to the fifth spot with $12 million. With weak marketing this week, followed by negative reviews the drop seemed inevitable. In its ten-day run the film has managed to gross $73.4 million on a $100 million budget.

Marmaduke and Splice were the two other debuting films that could not make it into the top five this weekend. Marmaduke had a $11.3 million opening and received many negative reviews from top critics alike. Splice, which had postive reviews and was a trending topic on twitter for some time opened with an awful $7.4 million

What are your thoughts on these numbers? Does it matter whether or not movies have positive reviews or not? As always leave your comments and questions in the comment section below.

To see full box office numbers head over to www.boxofficemojo.com.

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