Knight and Day Gets Beheaded At the Box Office

What was supposed to be a gold medal performance from Tom Cruise at the weekend box office turned into a disappointing bronze as Toy Story 3 and Grown Ups reeled in the cash, while Knight and Day floundered, despite a Wednesday opening.

Pixar’s latest triumph secured the number one spot with a $59 million take, which raised its two-week total to $227 million. Adam Sandler’s newest “comedy” Grown Ups survived brutal reviews to earn a estimated $41 million, good enough for a solid second-place finish.

Meanwhile, Knight and Day struggled to find a sizable audience and ended up third with a weekend gross of just under $21 million. Since last Wednesday, its managed to muster a underwhelming $27.8 million. For a flick marketed as a summer tentpole, that ain’t so good.

Here’s how the Top 10 stacked up (courtesy of Box Office Mojo):

1. Toy Story 3 – $59 million

2. Grown Ups – $41 million

3. Knight and Day – $20.5 million

4. The Karate Kid – $15.4 million

5. The A-Team – $6 million

6. Get Him to the Greek – $3.01 million

7. Shrek Forever After – $2.88 million

8. Prince of Persia – $2.8 million

9. Killers – $2 million

10. Jonah Hex – $1.6 million

The Karate Kid continues its steady pace while Jonah Hex is officially on life support. New this week at multiplexes across the land is some vampire movie called The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. I don’t know much about it, but all the 15-year-old girls I hang with tell me it’s gonna be amazing. Good enough for me. I predict it wins the battle of the summer box office. And no, you can’t quote me on that, just in case I’m wrong.

Also, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender drops on Thursday. Not to be confused with The Last Bender, which I believe was the original title of The Hangover. Anyway, Airbender is about a kid and elements, or something along those lines. I got bored reading the summary. It’s an M. Night production, so you know it will be heavy on style and painfully light on substance.