Box Office Report: Pixar Does it Again With ‘Up’

The final numbers are here for Up and as expected the film went up, up, and away at the box office this weekend. Coming in with a strong first place finish, the tenth movie by Pixar animation studios grossed a whopping $ 68.1 million over the three day weekend. Up is third biggest opening for Pixar falling behind Finding Nemo and The Incredibles who hit the $70 million mark during their opening weekend. The adjusted price for 3D showings surely helped this movie overall, but being the best reviewed film of the year certainly didn’t hurt either. Continue reading for a full breakdown of the weekend box office results.

Pixar clearly knocked it out of the park again with their tenth film. It makes me wonder if they can do no wrong. Not only do they have the best looking animation out there, but the stories they bring to the screen rival those of any other movies out there. Last years Pixar extravaganza was WALL-E which was snubbed for the best picture nomination, however it did win best animated picture. WALL-E tapped out at $227 million which was a number that was dwarfed by The Dark Knight being released a few weeks later. Up has the market to itself until Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen arrives later this month. Look for Up’s box office numbers to stay strong in the coming weeks.

The rest of the weekend box office looked like this:

The other wide release this weekend was Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell (#4) which only managed to bring in $15.8 million. The PG-13 horror film was well received by critics, but being released in the middle of a crowded summer didn’t help the film any. Coming in at a distant number two to Up was last weeks top dog Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian which dropped 55% in week number two which meant only $24 million over the weekend. Number three belonged to Terminator Salvation which saw an even bigger drop of 61.4%. Terminator only made another $16 million which brings its’ total to a mediocre $90. That may sound like a lot of money, but facing competition from Star Trek, and several kids movies, Terminator may not be the hit everyone thought it would be.

Star Trek rounded out the top five with another $12.6 million in the bank. After four weeks of release its’ grand total stands at $209 million. This makes Star Trek currently the highest grossing film of the year.

Next week brings Will Ferrell’s comedy Land of the Lost as well as the Vegas road trip comedy The Hangover. The next few weeks will see a lull at the box office until Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen drops and destroys everything around it. Look for Transformers 2 to be the biggest movie of the summer.