Weekend Estimates: Bullock's Best Betters Black

June 21, 2009

This was the weekend of the comedy in theaters, and romance won out over the numbskulls. Sandra Bullock enjoyed her best opening weekend ever as The Proposal topped the chart with an impressive $34.1 million, according to Disney's Sunday estimate. Bullock's previous best was the $17.5 million opening for Premonition in 2007, so this is a tremendous weekend for her.

The Hangover continued its incredible run, falling just 18% this weekend to an estimated $26.85 million. It's now topped $150 million in total, and $200 million looks inevitable. Perhaps even more amazingly, Hangover is performing better week-to-week than Pixar's Up, which put in another solid weekend with $21.3 million for a total of $224 million. That takes it past WALL-E and Ratatouille to become Pixar's sixth-highest grossing movie in the US. It should climb at least a couple more places before its run is finished.

In fourth place, Year One opened with an OK $20.2 million. That compares with Nacho Libre's $28.3 million opening in mid-June 2006, and suggests that Jack Black, like Will Ferrell, needs to find better projects to maintain his form at the box office.

Also notable this weekend was the $280,000 estimated opening in nine theaters for Woody Allen's Whatever Works. While Allen's movies have been a bit hit and miss in recent years, it looks like a targeted limited opening worked well this time around.

- Weekend Estimates
- Sandra Bullock's filmography
- Jack Black's filmography
- Pixar's history at the box office

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Up, The Hangover, The Proposal, Year One, Whatever Works