It's official! Bridesmaids is the highest-grossing film in the Judd Apatow cannon! Let's keep up the Kristen Wiig Oscar buzz (tag, you're it)!

It took a day or two longer than predicted, but Bridesmaids currently sits at $149 million at the domestic box office.  That means it is now the biggest-grossing film that Judd Apatow has been involved with in any capacity.  In this case, he was the producer (Paul Feig was the director), and the film just passed the respective $148 million+ totals of Knocked Up (which he directed) and Talladega Nights: The Story of Ricky Bobby (which he wrote).  It has started to lose screens over the last few weeks, so how high it can claim is an open question.  As of sometime this weekend, it will pass $152.6 million, to overtake Sex and the City as the biggest-grossing female-led comedy of all time.  As of now, it's the 27th-biggest R-rated film ever.  Amongst R-rated comedies, it currently ranks 11th, and it will surely crack the top ten before the holiday weekend is over.  With a debut of $26 million back in mid-May, it has already amassed a dynamite 5.7x multiplier with gas still left in the proverbial engine.  It's also Universal's biggest-grossing completely original live-action film in eight years (Bruce Almighty earned $242 million back in summer 2003).  It is the 23rd-biggest grossing film in Universal history.

Review: Bridesmaids (2011)

Bridesmaids
2011
125 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

The highest compliment I can pay to Paul Feig's Bridesmaids is that it is a triumph regardless of its alleged social importance.  I'm not going to get into the hand-wringing about its importance as a feminist statement or 'proof that women can be funny' (does ANYONE in the film industry watch TV?) because I'm not going to insult those who wrote and directed this picture.  It is merely a very sharp and observant comedy that happens to contain a primarily female cast of comedians and actresses.  It is arguably the best Apatow-produced picture so far, easily the best comedy of the year and one of the best films of the year, and a genuinely thoughtful and moving bit of comic cinema.

Bridesmaids gets a trailer.

Bridesmaids
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Put simply, this looks pretty amusing. The cast is terrific, and there theoretically is a market for a bawdy screwball comedy that happens to involve female comedians. The question is, will the same pundits who decried The Hangover and Hot Tub Time Machine for being all-boys-club affairs now decry this film for daring to portray female characters who are just as obnoxious as the boys? I sincerely hope not, but Judd Apatow as a producer puts this one squarely in the bullseye for the likes of Jezebel (the director is Paul Feig). Remember, the guy had the decency to write three-dimensional characters in The Forty Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up (especially Leslie Mann as a frazzled mother) and was still attacked because those characters weren't has devil-may-care fun as the immature men. It will be interesting to see how this fares commercially and critically against The Hangover 2, which opens just two weeks later. Come what may, Bridesmaids opens on May 12th.

Scott Mendelson