Last week The box office was dominated by the latest entry in the Twilight phenomenon. Fortunately it began to lose steam before its first weekend was up. Still, it has shown enough durability to put up a good tally in its second weekend with a 51% drop to bring its total gross to more than $235 million. However, it was not enough for it to remain at number one. It was unseated by a strong initial showing from the animated feature Despicable Me.Despicable Me proved to be a potent bx office draw as it outdid most expectations. This is a movie I was not all that interested in seeing at first. However, the more clips I saw for it the more interested I became. I did end up seeing it and while it is not a great film and is nowhere near Toy Story 3, it is quite entertaining in a crowd pleasing way. It will make you laugh, touch your heart and send you away happy. It brings a different angle on the familiar story of kids touching the heart of an adult and is a little bit darker than many of its ilk, but it is still fun for the family. It is hard to not want to have your own minions.
The Robert Rodriguez produced, Nimrod Antal directed Predator sequel finished in third place. The film proved to be a very entertaining romp, giving the movie monster some of his dignity back after the Aliens vs. Predator movies. It is a simply kill or be killed story that features a group of human killers thrown together t face down a Predator hunting party. It is a movie that is easy to enjoy and should be enjoyed. It is a well made action feature the likes of which have been few this year.
Fourth place goes to Toy Story 3 which is still cruising along. It has made nearly $340 million so far and is still going strong. Pixar really has hit one out of the park. It dropped just 30% from last week and has shown small drops during its first few weeks in theaters. It will be interesting to see how far it will go.
The rest of the list is just shifted down from last week. The only movie of note is The Last Airbender which suffered the biggest drop and will hopefully continue that trend. It is a frustrating and bad movie that needs to go away to free up screens for potentially and hopefully better films.
Next weekend will see new competition from the highly anticipated Inception. This is director Christopher Nolan's follow up to the great The Dark Knight. Also landing nationwide is The Sorceror's Apprentice, inspired by the sequence in Fantasia and turned into live action with Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel.
Three movies dropped off the list this week: Get Him to the Greek (12), Shrek Forever After (14), and Letters to Juliet (21).
| This Week | Last Week | Title | Wknd Gross | Overall | Week in release |
| 1 | N | Despicable Me | $56,397,125 | $56,397,125 | 1 |
| 2 | 1 | Twilight Saga: Eclipse | $31,708,438 | $235,370,815 | 2 |
| 3 | N | Predators | $24,760,882 | $24,760,882 | 1 |
| 4 | 3 | Toy Story 3 | $21,015,958 | $339,240,857 | 4 |
| 5 | 2 | The Last Airbender | $16,635,471 | $99,712,757 | 3 |
| 6 | 4 | Grown Ups | $15,806,738 | $110,721,531 | 3 |
| 7 | 5 | Knight and Day | $7,719,251 | $61,808,110 | 3 |
| 8 | 6 | The Karate Kid (2010) | $5,365,636 | $164,301,124 | 5 |
| 9 | 7 | The A-Team (2010) | $1,752,421 | $73,923,594 | 5 |
| 10 | 11 | Cyrus | $1,280,470 | $3,426,545 | 4 |
Box Office Predictions Recap
Mediocre at best this week. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the strong showing for Despicable Me. Who knew it would do so well? I didn't see it coming, I mean the theater I saw it in opening night wasn't close to a sell out. In any case, it is a fun movie and should be seen. The rest of the list was pretty close on both sides of the table. I am a little saddened by the continued success of Grown Ups while being happy about the success of Toy Story 3.
Here is how the field matched up:
| Actual | Prediction | Title | Wknd Gross | Prediction |
| 1 | 1 | Despicable Me | $56,397,125 | $38 million |
| 2 | 2 | Twilight Saga: Eclipse | $31,708,438 | $26 million |
| 3 | 3 | Predators | $24,760,882 | $21 million |
| 5 | 4 | The Last Airbender | $16,635,471 | $18 million |
| 4 | 5 | Toy Story 3 | $21,015,958 | $16 million |
| 6 | 6 | Grown Ups | $15,806,738 | $9.5 million |
| 7 | 7 | Knight and Day | $7,719,251 | $5.5 million |
| 8 | 8 | The Karate Kid (2010) | $5,365,636 | $4 million |
| 9 | 9 | The A-Team (2010) | $1,752,421 | $1.5 million |
| 12 | 10 | Get Him to the Greek | $711,625 | $600,000 |
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| Article first published as Box Office Update 7/9-7/11: Despicable Me Has Many Minions, er, Millions on Blogcritics. | ||||
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