Seven-Day Summary: 'Despicable Me' Crushes 'Eclipse,' 'Predators'
After an unexpectedly high opening weekend, Despicable Me maintained a strong pace throughout the week, bringing its seven-day total to $85.6 million. Predators was less impressive and actually fell out of the Top Five on Wednesday and Thursday. Holdovers The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Toy Story 3 continued to add to their already huge totals. Overall business was slightly up over the same timeframe last year, when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince led the way with $80.2 million.

Among this summer's animated releases, Despicable Me's opening week didn't come close to Toy Story 3's, but it was just behind Shrek Forever After's $89.8 million. Despicable Me had by far the biggest opening week for an animated movie from distributor Universal Pictures, and it is poised to pass Robin Hood this weekend to become Universal's top-grossing movie of the year. It's also worth noting that 34 percent of Despicable Me's grosses came Monday through Thursday, which was identical to Toy Story 3's weekday-to-weekend ratio.

Eclipse took the number two spot for the week, off 57 percent to $47.7 million. On Thursday, Eclipse passed the $250 million mark, and it's neck-and-neck with New Moon, though Eclipse has had smaller declines and should start outpacing New Moon soon.

After slow midweek grosses, Predators was barely able to hold on to its third place spot with $33.3 million. While this was the second biggest-grossing start for a Predator movie behind Alien Vs. Predator, it was slightly less attended than the 1987 original. Its first seven days also fell right in between those of distributor 20th Century Fox's other recent summer action movies The A-Team ($36 million) and Knight & Day ($31.7 million).

In its fourth week, Toy Story 3 earned $32.7 million, representing a 45 percent drop. It crossed the $350 million mark on Thursday, becoming the sixth-fastest movie ever to reach this milestone. With a $351 million total, Toy Story 3 currently ranks 16th on the all-time list, though it falls out of the Top 100 when adjusted for ticket price inflation.

While it had to settle for fifth place, Grown Ups earned more from Monday to Thursday than Predators, and was down just 33 percent to $24.3 million. In 21 days, the Adam Sandler ensemble comedy has earned $119.3 million.

In its second full week, The Last Airbender was off 63 percent to $24.3 million for a 15-day total of $107.4 million. Another fantasy, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, opened on Wednesday and had an unimpressive $7.1 million two-day take.

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Weekend Report: 'Despicable Me' Dominates, 'Predators' Solid But Unspectacular



Related Charts

Weekly Box Office, July 9-15

• Daily Grosses

• All-Time Domestic Grosses

• All-Time Fastest to $350 Million

• All-Time Fastest to $250 Million