The Weekend Box Office: Sony’s ‘Men In Black’ Topples ‘The Avengers’

It looks like there’s a new number one in town. While Marvel’s The Avengers has dominated most of May, Will Smith and his gang of interstellar agents prove that he and the Men in Black franchise are still hugely popular at the box office. MIB 3 finished Memorial Day weekend at the top, with The Avengers coming in at second place, while horror film Chernobyl Diaries is the only other new film to finish in the top ten. With MIB 3 finishing at number one, this gives Sony Pictures another top debut in a highly successful year for the film division.

Hit the jump for a full rundown of this week’s box office results.

While the film finished number one with $55 million, MIB 3 did run into some potential roadblocks to its debut success. With 10 years passing since the critically disappointing Men in Black II, MIB 3 could have easily flopped at the box office; however, the strength of the holiday weekend and the popularity of Will Smith managed to give the film respectable numbers and the top spot. According to Box Office Mojo, MIB 3 is also Smith’s third-highest Friday-Sunday opening all-time behind I Am Legend and Hancock.

While The Avengers slid to second place this week with just over $36 million (down 34 percent from last weekend), the film still managed to capture the second-highest fourth weekend behind 2009’s Avatar. The superhero blockbuster is also the fastest film to $500 million, hitting that total in only 23 days in theaters. Within the week, The Avengers should surpass The Dark Knight for third place on the all-time domestic box office chart.

In third this week is toy-based action flick Battleship, which fell 46 percent in just its second week in theaters to $13.8 million. With a huge budget and very little domestic success, the film continues to sink, making less in the same amount of time than Disney’s John Carter, which most analysts have universally labeled a box office disappointment.

Rounding out this week’s top five are Sasha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator, which fell only 33 percent to $11.8 million, and horror film Chernobyl Diaries, which debuted with just under $8 million. Chernobyl Diaries has been producer Oren Peli’s weakest film debut so far, as every film from his Paranormal Activity franchise bested Diaries small debut.

With stiff competition from Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman set for release this Friday, it remains to be seen whether or not Sony’s MIB 3 can hold onto the top spot for two weeks in a row.

Domestic Box Office Top Five