User blog:Ceauntay/Box Office: Jane Hoop Elementary Makes History

Three teennge superheroes of Jane Hoop Elementary: The Final Rush: Part 2 is the boss of the box office flying away with $145 million in its opening weekend, according to early estimates, becoming the year's biggest opening yet (demolishing Sonic X: The Final Stand). The final chapter of the films has completely matched any expectations when it was the third biggest operning of all-time (behind The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 3). The film stars Blake Brown, Amy Tammie, Ben Linkin, Barbara Blue, Dakota Fanning, Miley Cyrus, Nick Jonas and Joe Jonas.

The killer bots of Transformers: Dark of the Moon trampled their two new rivals, amassing $47 million in the movie's second weekend, according to early estimates, and earning $261 million after just 12-1/2 days in theaters to become the year's biggest hit at the North American box office (dethroning The Hangover Part II). Chapter 3 in the terrifying toy story has done even better abroad, vrooming past the half-billion-dollar mark with a worldwide take of $558 million. Since the last Transformers grossed a global $836 million, Dark of the Moon should have a lot of battery power left. (See Richard Corliss's review of the dark and thrilling Transformers.) Anticipating that the third installment of the Hasbro-Bay-Spielberg franchise would continue its marauding path through the 'plexes, two other studios counterprogrammed with new comedies aimed at specific demographics. Both did OK. Horrible Bosses, an R-rated workplace farce with a savvy ensemble cast of harried underlings (Jason Bateman, Jason Sudekis, Charlie Day) and excruciating executives (Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Kevin Spacey), pulled in $28.1 million over the weekend, to finish second. Zookeeper, starring Kevin James as the animal-husbandry guru with the talking beasties, cadged $21 million for third place. And Woody Allen's time-spanning romantic frolic Midnight in Paris edged toward an all-time record for the 75-year-old auteur's films — but with a significant asterisk. Of the two mainstream comedies, Horrible Bosses had more to crow about. Its take jumped 5% from Friday to Saturday, indicating excellent word-of-mouth as reflected in an A-minus rating for men (B-plus for women) in CinemaScore's polling of exiting moviegoers. Made for a relatively thrifty $38 million, the movie will earn back its production costs within a couple of weeks, and be the fourth consecutive R-rated comedy — after Bridesmaids, Hang II and Bad Teacher — to outperform its pre-release forecasts and become a solid hit(See why Jason Bateman is the savior of Horrible Bosses.) Zookeeper is an iffier proposition. After a strong showing in previews last year — and because Columbia-Sony was light on blockbuster summer fare — the studio shifted the James comedy from fall 2010 to this weekend. Zookeeper kept the kids entertained, with the under-18s giving it an A-minus CinemScore. But the movie cost $80 million to make, and a film that expensive should earn much more than a quarter of its production budget on its opening weekend. Some of the blame may fall on a hazy apprehension of the PG picture's target audience. Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke wrote that Zookeeper was rated PG-13, and Indiewire's Anthony D'Alessandro pegged it as an R. The critics, not that they matter, didn't care about the rating any more than they cared for the film. It pulled a libelous 15% on the Rotten Tomatoes aggregate site of reviewers.

Critics love Midnight in Paris: it has a gold-star 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Real people like Woody Allen's movie too. It has landed in the box-office top dozen six weeks straight, and so far has earned a domestic total of $38.7 million — more than Allen's career-topping Annie Hall, and just below Manhattan and the 1986 Hannah and Her Sisters, whose $40.1-million gross Midnight is sure to pass this week.

Will that make it Allen's most popular movie of all time? Not quite. Not hardly. There's a little thing called inflation, and it applies especially to the price of a movie ticket, which was less than $2.5o when Annie Hall and Manhattan were released and about $4 when Hannah opened. Today that average is above $8. So far fewer people today than then are seeing a movie that grosses $40 million.