While Thor is still king of the US box office, retaining his throne at the top of the charts with $34.5 million this weekend, the real story was the successful opening of Kristin Wiig’s film Bridesmaids, which she co-wrote and stars in. The comedy opened much bigger than even producing studio Universal anticipated, raking in $24.4 million across its first three days.
It’s a welcome success for the film, and will hopefully open doors to more quality movies made by funny women. Plus it’s a success for Wiig, director Paul Feig and producer Judd Apatow, all of whom will be feeling pretty happy this morning. In third place, **Fast Five **continued to rev its engine, earning $19.5 million (a drop of less than 40%), with the movie’s running total now up to $168.7 million in the US alone.
Priest, the vampire/Western/sci-fi action flick starring Paul Bettany, arrived in fourth despite some dreadful reviews, and also opened to decent business, making $14.5 million. Rio rounded off the top five with $8 million.
Jumping The Broom sank to sixth place from third, earning $7.3 million, just ahead of fellow wedding themed comedy** Something Borrowed**, which fell to seventh and $7 million. Water for Elephants was eighth, wrapping its trunk around $4.1 million and Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family took in $2.2 million at ninth. And in 10th position, we find Soul Surfer making $1.8 million.
If you’re married to the idea of statistics, get yourself over to Box Office Mojo’s full chart.