Shrek Forever After wins Memorial Day box office derby, while Sex and the City 2 and Prince of Persia crash. Weekend box office review (05/31/10).

Usually the above picture would make me sad, but Allison is actually napping again! As expected, Shrek: The Final Chapter was able to easily surpass Sex and the City 2 to take the three-day weekend crown and the four-day weekend crown over Memorial Day weekend. The contest on Friday was close enough that Shrek: Forever After was able to capitalize on strong family matinee business as well as the HBO sequel's downward plunge. In the end, the three day total is $43.3 million and the five-day total is $55.7 million. That's a drop of 38% from last weekend's disappointing three-day $70 million opening sprint. Since every single Shrek picture opened on the same weekend, the comparisons are easy to make. For reference, the first Shrek actually increased 0.4% over its second weekend, grossing $42.4 million in its second, holiday-inflated frame. The second picture set a record for the largest non-opening weekend of all-time, grossing $72.1 million and dropping just 33% (it's still the third-biggest second weekend, behind The Dark Knight's $75 million and Avatar's $77 million second-weekends). The third picture was beset by poor word of mouth and the monstrous opening weekend of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ($114 million over Fri-Sun), plunging 56% from $121 million to $53 million in its second frame.

Shrek: The Final Chapter opens with $71 million, while MacGruber crawls to $4.1 million. Weekend box office review (05/23/10).

By any normal standards, a movie opening with $70.8 million in three days would be a pretty big success. So, before we get into what this means for the Shrek franchise, let's talk that number in cold detail for a minute. First of all, it gives the fourth Shrek picture a pretty solid 3.4x weekend multiplier, which was superior to the 3.1x scored by Shrek the Third over its opening weekend. Second of all, in the grand scheme of animated films, it is still the fourth-biggest opening weekend for a cartoon, behind only Shrek 3 ($121 million), Shrek 2 ($108 million), and The Simpsons ($74 million). Also, for what it's worth, it's the fifth-biggest opening weekend for a 'fourth chapter' in box office history, behind Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ($102 million), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($101 million), X-Men Origins: Wolverine ($85 million), and Fast and Furious ($71 million). Of course, if you glance at the numbers posted by the previous two Shrek sequels, you start to see the reason for concern. Come what may, anytime a sequel opens with $50 million less than the prior installment, that's generally a bad thing. Shrek Forever After just made less on its opening weekend than Shrek 2 made on its second weekend ($72.1 million).

Shrek 4, MacGruber crash and burn in Friday box office (05/21/10).

It's tough to call anything grossing $20.7 million in a single day a disaster, but expectations and precedence tell the tale. The first Shrek film grossed $11.5 million on its first day, while Shrek 2 grossed $28.3 million on its first Friday (it had already grossed around $20 million on Wednesday and Thursday before exploding over the traditional weekend). Shrek the Third grossed $38.4 million on its opening day, also a Friday. So, even if we acknowledge that the Shrek franchise isn't the titan that it once once, and even if we admit that the marketing campaign for this unwanted fourth film was all over the place (is the film called Shrek Forever After or Shrek: The Final Chapter?), expectations were in order for something a bit under the three-day $121 million take of Shrek the Third. The $108 million Fri-Sun gross for Shrek 2 would have been reasonable, over even a low $90 million gross. But, as things stand now, Shrek Forever After is looking less like Shrek the Third and more like A Shark Tale.