Weekend Box Office: Larry The Cable Guy, America's Sweetheart
Cementing its status as the most reliable box-office winner in Hollywood, Pixar enjoyed its 12th number one hit in a row with Cars 2, which earned a healthy $68 million over the weekend, topping the $60 million grossed by the first film in the same frame. Despite receiving the worst notices of any Pixar movie to date—a 33% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer, and a 55 Metacritic score—Cars 2 connected with its target audience (young boys), at least enough to reap the merchandizing payload that likely prompted a sequel in the first place. Faring even better—in relation to cost, anyway—was the week’s other opening, the Cameron Diaz comedy Bad Teacher, earned $32 million, affirming post-Bridesmaids that raunchy female-centered comedies are the new raunchy arrested adolescent male comedies. Despite the news that Warner Brothers intends to make a sequel, Green Lantern dropped a precipitous 65% in its second week to slide into third, having not yet crested $100 million of its $200 million budget. Perhaps Warner Brothers figures audiences are really clamoring for more Sinestro next time. Sinestro! Sinestro! Sinestro!