Box Office Report: Star Trek Reboot Soars to $72.6 Million Opening

Live long and prosper? Looks like J.J Abrams’ new Star Trek movie is set to do just that. With an opening weekend of $72.6 million (with Thursday night showings you can tack $4 million more to that number) the Star Trek reboot opened bigger than any Star Trek film in history. To put it in perspective for you, the J.J Abrams’ directed Star Trek completely smashed all other Trek films in years past. The last Trek movie was Star Trek: Nemesis which made $43 million in its entire run. The new Star Trek almost doubled that number in just three days. This is an impressive feat for a movie which had no big name stars and a director who is responsible for more television hits than big screen movies.

Abrams’ Star Trek will soon become the highest grossing Trek film of all time. The current holder for that title is Star Trek: First Contact which grossed $92 million in 1996. Fans lined up to see the reboot of the famous tv show and based upon word of mouth, are enjoying the movie. Critically speaking the movie is great. Rotten Tomatoes has the film ranked with a 96% fresh rating which makes it the best reviewed film so far this year. With last weekends X-Men Origins: Wolverine grossing $85 million opening weekend, and now Star Trek with over $70 million, summer is definitely starting off with a bang. Here is how the rest of the weekend box office looked:

Coming in at a distant number two was last weekend’s champ Wolverine which suffered a 68% decline in week 2 which meant only $27 million over the weekend. The movie has endured horrible reviews so this number is not surprising. After two weeks of release Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine stands at a strong $129 million.

The number three spot went to Ghosts of Girlfriends Past which made another $10 million this weekend. After two weeks the romantic comedy has drummed up $30 million from moviegoers. The fourth and fifth spot went to April holdovers Obsessed and 17 Again respectively. Obsessed made another $6.6 million while Zac Efron’s 17 Again made $4 million in its fourth week of release.

The weekend box office was up a stellar 22% percent compared to this weekend last year when Speed Racer crashed and burned on opening weekend. Next weekend should see even more $$ at the box office when The Da Vinci Code sequel Angels & Demons arrives in theaters.