'The Break-Up' starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn, debuted more strongly than expected with $38.1 million to take over as the number one weekend movie. - CONTRIBUTED
LOS ANGELES (AP):
FUELLED BY real-life romantic splits and hook-ups, Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn's The Break-Up pulled an upset over the mutant world of the X-Men.
The Break-Up debuted more strongly than expected with $38.1 million to take over as the number one weekend movie from X-Men: The Last Stand, which slipped to second place with $34.35 million, according to studio estimates yesterday.
Aniston's split from Brad Pitt last year and her reported romance that began with Vaughn while filming The Break-Up helped keep the movie in the public eye.
"They're always in the press," said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal, which released The Break-Up. "Every time you turn around, somebody's talking about Jennifer, or Jennifer and Brad, or Jennifer and Vince. It's not why we made the movie, though."
The Break-Up pulled in about $10 million more than Rocco had expected.
After putting in a record four-day debut of $122.9 million over Memorial Day weekend, 20th Century Fox's third X-Men movie tumbled. The movie's domestic gross dropped a steep 67 per cent from its Friday-Sunday haul the first weekend.
Still, X-Men raised its total to a whopping $175.7 million in just 10 days, a mark it took X2: X-Men United 18 days to reach. Bruce Snyder, head of distribution for Fox, said the film should top out at $240 million to $250 million, beating the $157 million take for the first X-Men and the $215 million return for X2.
The huge decline in the second weekend was typical given how many people saw the movie over the holiday weekend, Snyder said.
"I'm not shocked at that drop," he said.
DreamWorks Animation's cartoon comedy Over the Hedge held up well, placing third with $20.6 million for a three-week total of $112.4 million.
Sony's The Da Vinci Code was number four with $19.3 million, lifting its three-week domestic gross to $172.7 million. Worldwide, the Tom Hanks film adapted from Dan Brown's best-seller has grossed $581 million and should hit at least $750 million globally, said Rory Bruer, Sony head of distribution.
In its second weekend, the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth went into wider release and broke into the top 10 with $1.33 million, though playing in just 77 theatres.
Overall business rose slightly, with the top 12 movies taking in $128.9 million, up 1.6 per cent from the same weekend last year.
After an eight per cent drop in movie attendance last year, Hollywood is positioned for a solid summer. Attendance is running about one per cent ahead of last year's, with what looks like a solid crop of blockbusters still to come, including this Friday's animated comedy Cars, from Disney and Pixar, and the Warner Bros. adventure Superman Returns on June 30.
Top 10 box office listings
1. The Break-Up,US$38.1 million.
2. X-Men: The Last Stand, US$34.35 million.
3. Over the Hedge, US$20.6 million.
4. The Da Vinci Code, US$19.3 million.
5. Mission: Impossible III, US$4.67 million.
6. Poseidon, US$3.4 million.
7. RV, US$3.3 million.
8. See No Evil, US$2 million.
9. An Inconvenient Truth, US$1.33 million.
10. Just My Luck, US$825,000.
