20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm's PG rated franchise installment Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones fell to second place in its third week with a still sizable ESTIMATED $20.68 million (-57%) at 3,161 theaters (theater count unchanged; $6,542 per theater). Its cume is approximately $232.1 million.
(NOTE: Today's percentage variations are versus the Friday-Sunday portion of the four day Memorial Day holiday weekend.)
Directed by George Lucas, it stars Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen.
"All the movies took some big hits this weekend," Fox distribution president Bruce Snyder said Sunday morning.
As to where Episode II is heading domestically, Snyder said that before making any predictions, "I'd like to see one more weekend coming off of a non-holiday, regular weekend to get a better idea of what the drops are going to be."
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace took in $431.1 million in domestic theaters. Its worldwide total (domestic plus international) was $923 million.
Columbia's PG-13 sci-fi fantasy blockbuster Spider-Man continued to hang on strongly in third place in its fifth week with a very solid ESTIMATED $14.5 million (-49%) at 3,646 theaters (-230 theaters; $3,977 per theater). Its cume is approximately $354.0 million.
Directed by Sam Raimi, it stars Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris.
"It's the fastest film ever to $350 million -- in 31 days versus 40 for Phantom Menace," Sony Pictures Entertainment worldwide marketing & distribution president Jeff Blake said Sunday morning. "This week it should catch and pass Jurassic Park at $357 million, which is the number five picture of all time. It has a good shot (to do so) by Thursday."
Asked where Spidey is likely to climb to, Blake replied, "Well, certainly, we go past $400 million. It's just a question of how far past. I'd say we've got $400 million very much in our sights, but we'd love to start passing and get deeper into the Top Five (of all time). We need $431 million to catch Phantom Menace and I think E.T. with its latest release is about $435 million or so. Those are nice goals and we should come close, but that could go either way.
"It's a bit of a moving target, but I think $420-450 million seems pretty logical. There's only four films that have ever been better and two of those needed a couple of releases (to get there)."
Focusing on the strong post-Memorial Day weekend, Blake pointed out, "This week after Memorial Day used to be terrible (for business) and actually was pretty good last year. This year looks like about the same, maybe a notch off. I think it's unrealistic to think the week after Memorial Day, which traditionally has been a sort of quiet between storms (period), can get too high up the ladder. We pushed it up pretty high last year with some pretty impressive openings and great holdovers. I think everybody did a pretty good job this year at keeping it at that level."