We suspect that both Quentin Tarantino and the entire Weinstein Company are lying senseless but happy in a pool of champagne this morning after Inglourious Basterds took $37.6m at the US box office, making it the biggest box-office opening of Tarantino's career and the biggest ever late-August opening*.
Just for comparison, that's more than three times what Grindhouse made in its opening weekend, and considerably more than Tarantino's previous best, Kill Bill Vol. 2's $25.1m. It's also a good bit more than recent World War II movies like Defiance and Valkyrie.
In second place was District 9 with a not-bad 49% slide to $18.9m over the weekend and $73.5m overall so far. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, The Time-Traveler's Wife and Julie and Julia all dropped less than 50%, with the latter in particular dropping a tiny 25%.
The other new releases, however, didn't do so well. Robert Rodriguez' Shorts took a tiny $6.6m despite a wide release, while post-university comedy Post-Grad could manage only $2.8m. Further down the list, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen still hasn't quite made it past $400m, with $398.4m, but The Hangover has equalled There's Something About Mary (adjusted for inflation) with $268.3m. In summary then: being a kid, or graduating = bad box office; saying to hell with it and blowing shit up / going to Vegas = good.
*OK, specific, but still - good for them!