Box-Office Weekend: Pixar's Toys Beat Sandler's Boys

Toy Story 3

Pixar / Disney

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In the battle of men behaving like boys vs. toys behaving like adults, Toy Story 3 emerged triumphant. The Pixar 3-D threequel took in an estimated $59 million in its second weekend at the North American box office, according to early studio reports, topping Adam Sandler's Grown Ups, which did just fine in its debut with a burly $41 million. Finishing a distant third was the new Tom Cruise comedy-adventure Knight and Day, at $20.5 million for the three-day frame.

TS3 has already corralled a bunch of domestic records. (It opens later this summer in most foreign markets, to avoid competing with the World Cup.) The movie scampered to the $200 million domestic mark faster than any other Pixar picture. Its opening week, at $167.6 million, is the highest of any film released this year and the best first week among all animated features. (Shrek the Third amassed $149.4 million back in 2007.) Mind you, ticket prices are higher now, especially for the 3-D showings, but in many theaters, kids' tickets still go at a discount, so there's no question the movie is drawing gigantic crowds. With its rapturous reviews and a solid "A" rating from the CinemaScore moviegoers poll, TS3 should continue to play sturdily throughout the summer — at least, after The Twilight Saga: Eclipse takes its ravenous box-office bite when it opens this Wednesday.

Last week, TS3 did not get the expected Friday-to-Saturday bump from parents taking their kids to weekend matinees. This week it did, escalating 25.6% on the Sabbath. The Woody-and-Buzz tale also managed a smoother drop from its first weekend (46.5%) than last year's summer smash, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (61.2%). That's to be expected, since movies aimed at youngsters tend to hold on to a greater share of their audience than the big action-adventures. Of this weekend's top 10 films that suffered a decline of less than 50% from last weekend, all were family fare: The Karate Kid (48.5%), which has now earned a kung-fantastic $135.6 million on a modest $40 million budget; DreamWorks' Shrek Forever After (48.8%), still the year's top-grossing animated feature; and even the frolicky Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (49.7%), which is a flop in the U.S. but has done enough business abroad to take it to the $300 million plateau worldwide.

On indie screens, Restrepo, the Sebastian Junger doc about bivouacking with an Army troop in Afghanistan, earned $30,453 on two screens, giving it the highest per-screen average of any new movie. Another Sundance prizewinner, the Ozark-set Winter's Bone, crossed the $1 million mark in its third week, while the Michael Douglas indie drama Solitary Man passed $2 million. The mumblecore domestic-horror movie Cyrus, with John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill, cadged $300,000 on 17 screens and, says Peter Knegt of IndieWire, will expand to 400 venues by mid-July. That should give audiences a chance to watch an off-putting comedy that doesn't star Adam Sandler.

Two summers ago, I ran into Sandler at a screening of You Don't Mess with the Zohan, and he asked me, with a touch of grievance in his voice, "Are you gonna give me another stinky review?" I thought, Stinky? I haven't heard that word since I was 8.

But then, arrested development is the key to Sandler's appeal — the belligerent kid in a man's body — and has been since he became a movie star in the mid-'90s. Favorable reviews? They're not a key. Critics and audiences have served predictable functions for each of his films: we slam it, they go see it. Ten times a Sandler picture has rung up more than $34 million on its opening weekend and gone on to earn at least $100 million at the domestic box office. That impressive run looks to continue with his new Grown Ups, in which Sandler and his comedy posse — Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider — bizarrely mash up two stories that have nothing in common: the Pulitzer Prize–winning play That Championship Season and last year's lamoid marital comedy Couples Retreat. Most critics gave the film stinky notices (a dismal 10% on the Rotten Tomatoes review-o-meter), which mattered not a whit to his humongous fan base. Grown Ups is the fifth Sandler picture, after Big Daddy, Anger Management, The Longest Yard and Click, to earn at least $40 million its first weekend.

Cruise was also shooting for his fifth $40 million–plus opener (after War of the Worlds and his three Mission: Impossible episodes), but he fell far short. His stab at a frantic rom-com adventure — co-starring another erstwhile box-office icon, Cameron Diaz — earned only about $5 million more this weekend than the very similar Killers did three weeks ago with considerably less glamour power (Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl) on the marquee. (The Killers ad showed Kutcher looking remarkably like Cruise: same cool shades, haircut and sweet impudence.) Given its importance as a $150 million comeback vehicle for Hollywood's onetime top gun, Knight and Day had a dispiriting weekend gross: just half of Sandler's take and a third of Toy Story 3's.

Industry swamis will doubtless ponder the bitter tea leaves and propose themselves as career-management counselors to Cruise, dreaming up ways to recapture his star wattage. One thought for the actor, who turns 48 next week but still looks boyish: he might consider following Sandler's example and play truly doltish characters who are happy to be stuck in perpetual early adolescence. The maxim of pitcher Larry Andersen applies to movie stars as well as baseball players: "You're only young once, but you can be immature forever."

Here are the Sunday estimates of this weekend's top-grossing pictures in North American theaters, as reported by Box Office Mojo:

1. Toy Story 3, $59 million; $226.6 million, second week
2. Grown Ups, $41 million, first weekend
3. Knight and Day, $20.5 million; $27.8 million, first five days
4. The Karate Kid, $15.4 million; $135.6 million, third week
5. The A-Team, $6 million; $62.8 million, third week
6. Get Him to the Greek, $3 million; $54.5 million, fourth week
7. Shrek Forever After, $2.9 million; $229.3 million, sixth week
8. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, $2.8 million; $86.2 million, fifth week
9. Killers, $2 million; $44 million, fourth week
10. Jonah Hex, $1.6 million; $9.1 million, second week