The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend. Be sure to check back on Monday for final figures based on actual box office.
Disney and Pixar Animation's 8th collaboration Ratatouille opened a bit softer than their previous films with $47.2 million, their lowest opening since A Bug's Life in 1998. After taking in $15 million on Wednesday and Thursday, 20th Century Fox's action sequel Live Free or Die Hard was able to capitalize on positive word-of-mouth to do more than twice that amount over the three day weekend, earning an estimated $33.1 million for 2nd place, and coming out a million dollars ahead of the Pixar movie with a total of $48.2 million after five days.
Despite opening in nearly 4,000 theatres, the Pixar animated film averaged less than $12,000 with almost unanimously good reviews going into the weekend. Chances are that the movie will find its business from word-of-mouth in the next few weeks and should still gross over $200 million more with very little competition for the family audience.
Budgeted at $110 million, Live Free or Die Hard averaged just under $10,000 per theatre over the weekend, and it's only chances of making back its budget domestically is if it can get past Michael Bay's Transformers next week.
With two big movies opening this weekend, last week's Top 3 took substantial hits as Evan Almighty dropped 52% in its second week, grossing $15 million for third place. It's grossed $60 million in its first ten days, a small fraction of its $175 million production budget.
Dimension Films' 1408, based on the Stephen King short story, wasn't hit as hard, but still dropped 48% for a second weekend gross of $10.6 million and a total of $40.4 million.
20th Century Fox's other sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer took another big plunge in its third weekend, dropping to 5th place with $9 million and a total gross of $114.8 million.
Judd Apatow's comedy Knocked Up pulled ahead of Warner Bros.' Ocean's Thirteen, earning $7.4 million to the latter's $6 million. The R-rated comedy has grossed $122 million over the course of June, making it the highest grossing film of the month, with Soderbergh's crime-comedy having grossed $102 million since its opening.
Dropping to eighth place, Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End had one of the best holds of its run, making $5 million over the weekend, and yet, it still hasn't reached the $300 million gross of the first movie. (Expect it to hit that amount by next weekend thanks to the 4th of July holiday.)
After an exclusive release in a single New York theatre, Michael Moore's documentary SiCKO expanded into 441 theatres in top markets where it grossed $4.5 million for ninth place. With the second highest per-theatre average in the Top 10, its likely that Lionsgate will expand the movie into more theatres over the 4th of July weekend.
Evening's all-star cast helped the Focus Features drama to gross $3.5 million in its opening weekend in 977 theatres, an average of $3,595 per theatre.
Last year, the Top 10 movies including Bryan Singer's Superman Returns and the comedy hit The Devil Wears Prada grossed $139 million, although for the first time this month, that number was surpassed by this weekend's choices.
