Altogether now: We’re number one! We’re number one! We’re… Okay, technically we’re not, but that’s the sort of thing our cousins across the pond like to chant when something big happens. So Captain America managing to maintain the Marvel success story would likely cause some celebration in certain camps. Launching the same weekend as Comic-Con, the superhero pic scored $65.8 million in estimates, though even distributors Paramount have cautioned that the figure – which technically puts the new film’s launch ahead of Thor – may drop when the final tallies arrive.
Still, it was more than enough to shove Harry Potter and his pals down to second place, with The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 still earning well and making $48 million in its second weekend. The movie’s US total now stands just above $274 million. Third place went to Cap’s fellow new arrival, the Justin Timberlake/Mila Kunis comedy Friends with Benefits, which launched to $18.5 million. Which means that on first weekends alone, Portman/Kutcher competition No Strings Attached is currently ahead. Still, positive word of mouth might help Friends win out in the end. T****ransformers: Dark of the Moon was fourth with $12 million, while Horrible Bosses took fifth with $11.7 million.
In sixth place we find Zookeeper, which made $8.7 million, ahead of Cars 2 in seventh with $5.7 million. Winnie the Pooh was eighth, earning $5.1 million. Bad Teacher sank to ninth and $2.6 million and Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris clung on to 10th place, adding $1.8 million to its successful haul of $44.8 million to date. That might not sound like much compared to, say, Deathly Hallows, but it’s Woody’s most profitable film ever…
To fight Hydra (Heil Hydra!) with the shield of statistics, head over to Box Office Mojo.