Week 4 Recap: Blacked Out

The Avengers finally dropped out of the top box office spot, but only after making $475 million. As expected, the third Men in Black installment was able to knock the superheroes down a notch, but not by as much as anticipated. MIB 3 made only $70 mil over the long Memorial Day weekend, which doesn't bode well for Stuck in the Middle with You Features, Darius' fantasy studio. The Will Smith flick is currently on pace to end somewhere between $20 mil in the red to $20 mil in the black. Meanwhile, Avengers made another $47 mil, sending it over $520 mil in a mere four weeks of release. At this point, it appears that buying its fantasy rights would have made sense at $450 mil, much less the $255 mil that Matt spent. In fact, had someone spent their entire half billion budget on The Avengers, he would have still ended up at nearly $100 mil in the black and an SWF of nearly 200.

The other wide release of the weekend was Chernobyl Diaries. Pardon the expression, but it bombed at a mere $9 mil, further jeopardizing Jeremy's fledgling studio as his fourth straight movie to (likely) lose money. At this point, his only hope is for the new Pixar flick "Brave" to come out of the box office gate like gangbusters.

In other box office news, Battleship fell hard by 45% from last weekend, which indicates that word-of-mouth about the film has not been good. On the flip side, What to Expect When You're Expecting fell only 16%, which is likely due to it being the only chick flick out there right now.

Looking forward to this coming weekend, Snow White and the Huntsman (equal parts Twilight and Lord of the Rings) looks to storm the box office Bastille. Current forecasting looks like it could eke out first place over Men in Black, but it's too early to tell. Early reviews show Snow White to be a mixed bag, a love-it-or-hate-it revisionist take on the classic children's tale.