Captain America knocks down Harry Potter

After breaking all kinds of box office records last week, it only took an American icon to end Harry Potter’s spell over the box office as the latest comic book movie of the summer Captain America: The First Avenger starring Chris Evans opened to a big $65 million. That was on par with Thor’s opening from earlier this summer, and the fact that the film is actually quite good (I gave massively entertaining film a “A-” grade) should help it have legs in the weeks ahead. It also towered over the opening for X Men: First Class which has been a modest hit this summer and The Green Lantern which tanked…. Now, back to Harry. Despite falling into second, the last Potter film still took in a strong $47 million for a huge $273 million easily on its way to being the highest grossing film of the series…. The other news at the movies this weekend was the opening of the Justin Timberlake/Mila Kunis comedy Friends with Benefits which took in a decent $18.6 million, just a hair behind the $19 mil that the similarly themed (and much less funny) No Strings Attached grossed in January when it opened. We’ll see how Friends holds up as the smart and hilarious romantic comedy Crazy Stupid Love hits theatres this weekend… For all your box office news, head to Box Office Mojo here and check out the new top ten below.

TW LW Title (click to view) Studio Weekend Gross % Change Theater Count / Change Average Total Gross Budget* Week #
1 N Captain America: The First Avenger Par. $65,058,524 – 3,715 – $17,512 $65,058,524 $140 1
2 1 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 WB $47,422,212 -72.0% 4,375 – $10,839 $273,539,281 – 2
3 N Friends with Benefits SGem $18,622,150 – 2,926 – $6,364 $18,622,150 $35 1
4 2 Transformers: Dark of the Moon P/DW $12,051,735 -43.5% 3,375 -542 $3,571 $325,841,185 $195 4
5 3 Horrible Bosses WB (NL) $11,884,319 -33.1% 3,104 -30 $3,829 $82,566,703 $35 3
6 4 Zookeeper Sony $8,702,055 -29.4% 3,215 -267 $2,707 $59,206,255 $80 3
7 5 Cars 2 BV $5,655,857 -32.7% 2,668 -581 $2,120 $176,375,295 $200 5
8 6 Winnie the Pooh BV $5,162,046 -34.3% 2,405 – $2,146 $17,594,297 $30 2
9 7 Bad Teacher Sony $2,610,925 -49.3% 2,034 -625 $1,284 $94,365,688 $20 5
10 10 Midnight in Paris SPC $1,804,662 -3.8% 621 -85 $2,906 $44,783,206 $30 10

Two Times the Timberlake

Grammy winning pop star turned A-List actor Justin Timberlake (The Social Network) is about to take over your summer. The Emmy winning performer (Saturday Night Live) has 2 big summer comedies headed your way and both have the makings of big hits. First hitting theatres is Bad Teacher which features Cameron Diaz as the titular character in what looks like her funniest performance in ages. Timberlake shows up as a new teacher who sparks her interest and possibly helps her turn around her bad behavior. I’m betting this wacky comedy could be the big surprise hit of the summer when it hits theatres on June 24th… A month later Justin returns to the silver screen in his first romantic comedy opposite recent Golden Globe nominee Mila Kunis (Black Swan) in Friends with Benefits. Ok, sure, the film looks and sounds a whole lot like the recent Natalie Portman/Ashton Kucther movie No Strings Attached. But, I say there’s one big difference. This one actually looks funny. Plus, it gives us JT’s first big sex scene so swoon away people. You can check that one out on July 22nd…. Now, I wanna hear which one you’re more excited about. Watch trailers for both films below and enjoy two times the Timberlake!

Bad Teacher trailer

Friends With Benefits trailer