Despicable Me Is Anything But At The Box Office

The combination of Steve Carell’s voice and an animated kids story proved to be too tough to handle at the weekend box office. Universal’s under-hyped Despicable Me crushed the competition by hauling in $60 million since Friday. Slipping into second place was Twilight: Eclipse with $33.4 million, which brought its two-week total to more than $237 million.

Meanwhile, the other new release, the R-rated Predators, tallied a respectable $25 million, which should make producers happy considering it was shot on a budget of $40 million. Toy Story 3 has surpassed Iron Man 2 to become the biggest domestic earner of the summer, while M. Night Shyamalan’s dreadful The Last Airbender suffered a 60% drop in ticket sales; however, it did manage to pass the $100 million mark, so it’s not a complete financial disaster.

Here’s how the Top Ten stacked up (Via Box Office Mojo):

1. Despicable Me – $60.1 million

2. Twilight: Eclipse – $33.4 million

3. Predators – $25 million

4. Toy Story 3 – $22 million

5. The Last Airbender – $17.1 million

6. Grown Ups – $16.4 million

7. Knight & Day – $7.85 million

8. The Karate Kid – $5.7 million

9. The A-Team – $1.8 million

10. Cyrus – $1.4 million

The interesting flick to monitor is Cyrus, which has already earned $3.5 million on a scant 200 theaters. When it finally goes wide, it could be one of the summer’s best earners, especially since its budget was only $7 million.

This week we will finally get a look at Christopher Nolan’s mysterious Inception. The buzz on this film has been across the board positive. Some have called it the most original and inventive movie to be released in years. I, for one, can’t wait to see it.