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Those Burger King Star Trek Movie Glasses Are a Hit!

By Dustin Rowles | Box Office Round-Ups | May 10, 2009 |

By Dustin Rowles | Box Office Round-Ups | May 10, 2009 |


The Star Trek prequel, as expected, opened this weekend at number one. In fact, it handily beat studio expectations, which predicted a $50 million-$65 million opening. With the $4 million it made in Thursday night showing, Star Trek grossed $76 million overall. After only one weekend, J.J. Abrams’ prequel outgrossed the lifetime grosses of six other Star Trek movies and will become the highest grossing Star Trek movie ever (beating The Voyage Home’s $109 million) by next Friday. It’s the second biggest opening weekend of the year. The 15th best May opening of all time.

So, why does it feel strangely disappointing to me? Probably because the massively inferior Wolverine opened with $11 million more the weekend before. In fact, that’s probably why Star Trek didn’t fare as well, having to share the action-movie market with Hugh Jackman — in fact, Seth said that he saw Star Trek at a 14-screen theater; 10 of them were devoted to Wolverine and Star Trek and they even had Star Trek showings one minute apart. Anyway, it’s slightly disappointing that it didn’t get $90 million or so, if only because the damn thing won even me over, and I hate sci-fi. And, in theory, Chris Pine (in practice, dude was pretty goddamn great).

Wolverine, as I predicted, didn’t break $30 million in its second weekend, landing at No. 2 with $27 million, a staggering 68 percent drop-off, which should at least give Fox studios second thoughts about unleashing 47 additional spin-offs. Star Trek, on the other hand, should hold better in its second weekend, competing only against Angels & Demons, which skews older adult.

My other quibble: Over on RottenTomatoes, Star Trek, with a 95 percent approval rating, fared better than the best blockbusters of the last two years, The Dark Knight (94 percent), Iron Man (93 percent), and The Bourne Ultimatum (93 percent). Great movie, but better than The Dark Knight and Iron Man?

We can also expect confirmation on a sequel to the prequel any hour now. [They started on the screenplay in March. —DC]

Not much else going on over the weekend. Next Day Air (we’ll have a half-assed review up tomorrow — it deserves no better) opened weakly at No. 6, grossing a meager $4 million. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past held strong in its second week, dropping only 33 percent, although that was still only good for $10 million. And Obsessed won’t go away, putting up another $6 million, to bring its total to $56 million, and ensure that Beyonce will replace Zoe Saldana in the next Star Trek film.

5. 17 Again ($4.4 million; $54 million)

4. Obsessed ($6 million; $56 million)

3. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (10 million; $30 million)

2. X-Men Origins: Wolverine ($27 million; $129 million)

1. Star Trek ($76 million)