Week 3 Recap: You Sunk My Battleship

Just as one should never bring a knife to a gun fight (unless your name is Black Widow), one should also never bring a third-rate Hasbro-based movie to a box office blockbuster battle.  Transformers 4 Battleship, the most recent victim of Avengers' scorched-earth box office strategy, originally looked like it'd be the film to which The Avengers would pass the blockbuster torch. But as negative reviews started coming back in the last few days before release last week, it quickly became apparent that Battleship, despite the considerable talents of Liam Neeson, would sink like a cheap trawler. And with its untimely demise at only $26 mil, so also sank AJ's hopes of getting an early jump on catching Matt. But Battleship wasn't the only casualty of the Hulk and Co. AJ's other purchase of the weekend, The Dictator, opened with $25 mil, putting it on pace to make AJ a rather small profit, while the other wide release, What to Expect, opened far worse than expected for Darius and will struggle to make back his initial investment.

Looking ahead to this coming Friday, the stars appear to finally be aligning for a new movie to take the first place mantle from the Avengers.  Men in Black 3, the sequel that no one asked for but most are loving (RT reviews are largely positive thus far), is destined to continue a theme that may well carry all the way through the summer.  The theme?  Cartoons, comics, and other children's lit.  From Avengers to Men in Black to Snow White to Madagascar 3 to Brave to GI Joe to Spiderman to Ice Age to Batman, we may not see a first place movie outside that genre until Bourne Legacy is released in August.  MIB3 is currently forecasting at $82 mil for the weekend.  Meanwhile, the other wide release of the week, Chernobyl Diaries, is predicted to open at $16 mil, which could further hurt Jeremy's chances of a good rookie season.