Box Office: ‘Despicable Me’ Proves Lovable to Audiences with $60.1 Million

If you don’t like kids, it was probably best to stay away from the movie theater this weekend. Between the $60.1 million that top-earner “Despicable Me” brought in and “Toy Story 3″‘s $22 million, your local megaplex likely felt more like a daycare center (shudder). With “Despicable Me,” Universal continues to try to break into the animation market dominated by Pixar, Disney, and DreamWorks, and this is their most successful attempt yet. The Steve Carell-voiced film trounced the previous opening weekends of their earlier films “Coraline” ($16.8 million), “The Tale of Despereaux” ($10.1 million), and “Curious George” ($14.7 million). This is a great coup for a non-franchise, non-adaptation film, and it compares nicely to the openings of previous hits “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” ($30.3 million) and even mega-moneymaker “How to Train Your Dragon” ($43.7 million).

The aforementioned “Toy Story 3” also became the year’s top-grossing film that opened this year (sorry, “Avatar”). “Toy Story 3” now has a total domestic gross of $340 million, bringing it past “Alice in Wonderland”‘s $334 million. The success of these films is also just one more indication of 3D’s dominance at the box office. We’re 28 weekends into the year, and a win from “Despicable Me” marks the 20th time a 3D film has held the top spot at the box office. Between the audience’s continued love of the gimmick and the surcharge added to each ticket, this seems like a surefire ticket to box-office dominance.

Unless you’re “The Last Airbender.” The M. Night Shyamalan film dropped to fifth place in its second week with $17.1 million. This is a 57.5% drop from its opening weekend, and we’re betting bad word of mouth coupled with a crowded marketplace isn’t helping its case. These aren’t embarrassing numbers, but it can’t be enough to keep Paramount execs positive even though the film crossed the $100 million total mark.

“The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” looks like it still has all its teeth, coming in second place with $33.4 million, placing it right in line with its (cheaper) predecessor. After 12 days, “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” had brought in $236 million domestically, while this sequel has earned $237 million in the same time frame. Despite “Eclipse” costing a bit more to make, this (unfortunately) is a win considering that July is a far more crowded movie marketplace than November, when “New Moon” opened.

In its debut, the franchise-reviving “Predators” scored in third place with $25.3 million. This might seem like a weak opening (which we would never say to the Predators’ face because we value our own), but taking into account its R rating for “strong creature violence and gore, and pervasive language,” this is solid work for the Fox film. “Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem” made only $10 million in its opening weekend, so this is a definite improvement on that, but it doesn’t touch the $38.3 million opening of “Alien Vs. Predator” back in 2004. However, it’s all about profitablity, and the reported $40 million production budget of “Predators” means it will likely break even.

In the world of limited releases, “The Girl Who Played with Fire” opened in eleventh place with $762,000 for a per-screen average of $8.965. After the success of its predecessor, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” ($9.2 million domestic and $92 million international), Music Box Films released this Stieg Larsson adaptation a little wider, starting off with 85 screen’s versus the original’s 34. Its per-screen average is just a bit lower than “Dragon Tattoo”‘s $9,868, but that seems negligible considering the wider availability.

Meanwhile,”The Kids Are All Right” earned $505,000 on seven screens, which makes its per-screen average tops for the week with $72,143 (for those of you without calculators). This is a nice debut for the excellently reviewed film, and the expansion in coming weeks means that people outside New York and L.A. won’t have to wait long to see the film (and to see Focus Features to make more well-deserved money).

“Cyrus” continues to hold its own in tenth place with $1.4 million, bringing its total to $3.5 million. For those of you waiting for the wonderful film “The Kids Are All Right” to make it to your local theater, “Cyrus” is the film to see in the meantime. It added another 123 locations to its run, and is averaging a respectable $6,875 per screen.

1. Despicable Me – $60.1 million ($60.1 mil.)
2. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – $33.4 million ($237 mil.)
3. Predators – $25.3 million ($25.3 mil.)
4. Toy Story 3 – $22 million ($340 mil.)
5. The Last Airbender – $17.2 million ($100 mil.)
6. Grown Ups – $16.4 million ($111 mil.)
7. Knight & Day – $7.9 million ($61.9 mil.)
8. The Karate Kid – $5.7 million ($165 mil.)
9. The A-Team – $1.8 million ($74 mil.)
10. Cyrus – $1.4 million ($3.5 mil.)