Box Office | featured news

Despite intense last-minute lobbying by major Hollywood studios, talent guilds and others, the first futures contract based on movie boxoffice results was approved Monday and are expected to start trading this year.

Who would have thought a 12-year-old descended from Hollywood royalty would be the summer box office savior?

FRIDAY PM UPDATE: My studio sources tell me that very early numbers show that Sony's kid-friendly Karate Kid reboot starring Will Smith's son will be #1 this weekend with nearly $50M. Expectedly, Fox's film action version of the 80's TV series The A-Team will finish #2 -- but only with about $30M which is embarrassing for what was supposed to be the start of another franchise. (Read my backgrounder, 11 WRITERS LATER: 'The A-Team'.) I'll have more info later tonight.

Hollywood is in a June swoon as a rush of new movies fails to grab audiences. "Shrek Forever After" remained the No. 1 movie for a third-straight weekend with $25.3 million.
The best of the newcomers was the rock 'n' roll comedy "Get Him to the Greek," which debuted at No. 2 with $17.4 million. Opening at No. 3 was the action comedy "Killers" with $16.1 million.

Film News: Animated sequel bests 'Greek' and 'Killers' -- The 3D pic took in an estimated $6.7 million in 4,386 runs, topping several films that opened this week.

With a significant drop for "Sex and the City" on Saturday and just mid-level earnings for "Prince of Persia," "Shrek Forever After" is on track to win what looks like the slowest Memorial Day holiday weekend at the box office in a decade.

Ladies ruled at Friday's boxoffice as Warner's release of "Sex and the City 2" danced off with an estimated $13 million in 3,445 North American theaters.

The gals of "Sex and the City 2" -- those up on the screen -- wooed an estimated $14.2 million from mostly female fans of the TV series-turned-film franchise who filled multiplexes theaters on Thursday.

"Alice in Wonderland" on Thursday will become the sixth movie to cross $1 billion in worldwide boxoffice and the first spring release to do so.

So much for the public's hunger for anything in 3D. DreamWorks Animation's "Shrek Forever After" bowed even more lightly than some had feared, with the family comedy topping domestic rankings with just $71.3 million in estimated weekend boxoffice. The latest Paramount-distributed pic about a lovable ogre and his family debuted with significantly less green stuff than the two previous "Shrek" sequels, which each fetched $100 million-plus in their first three days.