Officer Michaels (Seth Rogen) makes life interesting for three young guys having the night of their lives in 'Superbad'.
LOS ANGELES (AP):
Hollywood notched its first US$4 billion summer as teen geeks helped Hollywood end the season in record fashion.
Sony's Superbad, the comedy about three dorky high-schoolers trying to score booze for a party, was the number-one movie for a second straight weekend with US$18 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates yesterday. The movie raised its 10-day total to US$68.6 million. Superbad was on its way to US$100 million, an unusual accomplishment for a movie with no big stars.
"It just goes to show, you make them laugh, and they'll come," said Rory Bruer, head of distribution for Sony, which kicked off Hollywood's big summer with a record-breaking debut weekend of US$151.1 million for Spider-Man 3 in early May. "To start the summer with Spider-Man and end it like this is an absolute blast."
Hot streak
Though business is slowing down as parents and students prepare for a new school year, Hollywood continued its summer hot streak. The top 12 movies took in US$90.2 million, up seven per cent from the same weekend last year, when Invincible opened at number one with US$17 million.
Overall, Hollywood crossed the US$4 billion mark for the summer season. The figure topped the US$3.95 billion set in 2004, according to box office tracker Media By Numbers. Movies will have grossed about US$4.15 billion by the time the season ends on Labour Day, up eight per cent from last summer, estimated Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers.
"Whether it be sequels, originals, comedies, action movies or whatever, this particular mix of films brought audiences in a record-breaking way," Dergarabedian said. "We still have to temper that with the fact that the number of tickets sold is nowhere near a record."
Factoring in higher admission prices, Media By Numbers estimated about 606 million movie tickets will have been sold this summer, a solid figure but only the sixth best for modern Hollywood. The best summer in recent times was in 2002, when 653.4 million tickets were sold.
The weekend's top debuts were Universal's Mr. Bean's Holiday and Lionsgate's War.
Mr. Bean's Holiday features Rowan Atkinson reprising the goofy man-child character he played on British television and in the 1997 movie Bean. If the estimates hold when final numbers are released today, Mr. Bean's Holiday will finish number four at the box office with US$10.1 million. It already has taken in US$190 million in overseas markets, where the character is enormously popular.
Upcoming movies
War, an action showdown between Jet Li as a shadowy hit man and Jason Statham as an FBI agent, debuted at number five with US$10 million.
The MGM and Weinstein Co. release The Nanny Diaries, starring Scarlett Johanssen as a recent college graduate who takes a live-in childcare job for a control-freak mom (Laura Linney) and a career-obsessed dad (Paul Giamatti), opened in sixth place with US$7.8 million.
Yari Film Group's Resurrecting the Champ, with Samuel L. Jackson as a former boxer now living on the streets and Josh Hartnett as a sportswriter who chronicles the man's story, opened weakly with US$1.85 million.
