End-of-Run Report: 'Star Trek,' 'Wolverine' Close
The summer's first two big movies, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Star Trek, officially ended their runs on Thursday, Oct. 1. That is to say, their distributors will no longer track them even though they might continue at a few theaters (Star Trek in particular).

Star Trek closed with a $257.7 million tally for its 147-day run, including $28.1 million from its IMAX run (which will continue at a trickle). The reboot of the venerable sci-fi franchise, which had a marketing campaign that slickly married the culturally iconic Trek with the promise of an epic, visceral adventure, ranks as the fifth-highest grossing picture of 2009 thus far.

More importantly, Star Trek stands as the highest-grossing Trek yet, soaring past Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ($109.7 million), and is a franchise best in terms of estimated total attendance, edging out the first Star Trek movie from 1979. This feat was made all the more impressive by its rise from the ashes of the failures of the last movie (Star Trek: Nemesis) and television series (Enterprise).

Though it kicked off the summer and had a bigger opening weekend, X-Men Origins: Wolverine was quickly overshadowed by Star Trek. It wound up with $179.9 million for its 154-day run, over 47 percent of which came from its opening weekend alone, and it's the eighth highest-grossing of the year so far.

Among X-Men movies, Wolverine's gross ranks third, ahead of the first X-Men but significantly behind X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand, and its estimated total attendance is less than all the other X-Men movies by a wide margin. Lower attendance was inevitable because the picture was a prequel appealing to the fan base instead of expanding it and the previous movies were already about the Wolverine character's origin. Not to mention, the previous movie, The Last Stand, had a mixed reception.

Three summer movies that disappointed at the box office also came to an end on Oct. 1: The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard was a clunker with $15.1 million in 49 days, I Love You Beth Cooper flunked out with $14.8 million in 84 days, and Taking Woodstock was canceled at $7.5 million in 37 days.

Opening Weekend Reports

'Star Trek' Prospers

'Wolverine' Roars

Related Charts

• 2009 Grosses

• 'Star Trek' Franchise

• 'X-Men' Franchise