"Cars" revved into first place at the box-office this weekend, the Pixar flick taking in a superb $62.8 million estimated haul over its three-day launch, the fourth highest opening movie of 2006. Whilst the total was impressive, the shine is off a little as the amount was a significant drop from the $70+ million that both "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles" enjoyed in their debuts.
No word if reviews had any impact - like all Pixar films they were positive but generally a little less so than previous movies. Over at Rotten Tomatoes the film scored an average 7.1/10 score from reviewers - by far the worst mark a Pixar film has gotten. Past efforts of the company have scored much higher like "Toy Story" (8.9/10), "Finding Nemo" (8.6/10), "Toy Story 2" (8.6/10), "The Incredibles" (8.3/10), "A Bug's Life" (8/10) and "Monsters Inc." (7.9/10).
Romantic drama "The Break-Up" held alright against the competition with a 48% drop to $20.5 million, and looks on its way to cruising over the $100 million mark. "X-Men: The Last Stand" has now well overtaken "The Da Vinci Code" and crossed the $200 million mark, the first film in 2006 to do so. Rival CG comedy "Over the Hedge" still held well with around $10.3 million and now sits with a very comfy $130.2 million total.
Despite its big opening day haul on Tuesday, "The Omen" cooled a little but still made a nice $15.5 million for Fox. Robert Altman's "A Prairie Home Companion" did well on a large limited release front, managing to crack the top ten and earn a sweet $6,166 per theatre average. "Poseidon" continues to bomb badly and will probably dock at around $60 million by the end of its run, M:I-3 is cooling right off and looks to be ending with around $140 million - easily the series lowest.
