Word of mouth is spreading and for “Green Lantern” it’s not good. The first major DC Comics launch not featuring Superman or Batman found just $52.6 million for its opening weekend. That’s less than $55 million debut for “X-Men: First Class” just two weeks ago or the $65 million “Thor” found in May. Considering the picture’s $200 million plus price tag, Warner Bros. has to be concerned the adventure dropped 22% from Friday to Saturday. That’s clearly a sign that audience reaction is weak. Genre fans always pump up a Friday gross for a film like this, but any drop should have been made up by families on Saturday. What this means for the future of the Emerald Crusader or even DC Comics heroes on the big screen outside of the big two remains to be seen, but most likely it can’t be good.
After winning last weekend, “Super 8” dropped to second with $21.2 million down just 40% from its debut. The J.J. Abrams $140 million Sci-Fi adventure has grossed $72 million in just 10 days.
Debuting in third was the Jim Carrey family flick “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” with $18.2 million. Strangely, “Penguins” didn’t benefit from the expected Saturday matinee bounce that “Super 8” experienced. With a budget of just $55 million, this 20th Century Fox flick could still break even in the long run once international grosses are considered.
Fourth place went to “X-Men: First Class” with another $11.5 million and practically $120 million to date. At this point, the Matthew Vaughn reboot still has a shot of matching the original “X-Men’s” $157 million domestic gross.
“The Hangover, Part II” was Warner Bros. best news of the weekend as it found 9.6 million in fifth. The Todd Phillips comedy has now surpassed the global gross of the first “Hangover” with $232.6 million domestically and $449 million worldwide.
Among other releases, “Midnight in Paris” hit $21.7 million this weekend and should surpass “Vicky Cristina Barcelona’s” $23.2 million to become Woody Allen’s highest grossing movie ever by Monday or Tuesday. A final cume of $30-35 million is not out of the question at this point.
Next weekend’s releases include Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake and Jason Segel in “Bad Teacher” and another round of “Cars 2.”
Final box office results are released on Monday.