Seven-Day Summary: 'Shrek' Pales Next to Last 'Shrek'
Shrek Forever After failed to cast a spell on audiences this week, finishing a whopping 40 percent below Shrek the Third through the same point. Among other debuts, Sex and the City 2 ranked fourth from just one day in release, and MacGruber had one of the worst weeks of the year so far. Holdovers Iron Man 2 and Robin Hood lost around half of their audiences, while Letters to Juliet held well. Overall business was up eight percent over the same timeframe last year, when Angels & Demons led with $60.1 million.

Shrek Forever After finished its first week with $89.8 million, which does not compare favorably to Shrek the Third's $149.4 million and Shrek 2's $143.8 million. Even the first Shrek, which opened to $56.5 million (or the equivalent of around $79 million adjusted for ticket price inflation), had higher initial attendance due to Shrek Forever After's inflated 3D ticket prices. DreamWorks Animation investors felt the impact of Shrek 4's low-for-Shrek opening: the company's stock price closed down nearly 15 percent week-on-week today.

Iron Man 2 slowed its decline a bit this week, down 48 percent to $33.9 million. Still, this is $7 million less than its predecessor made in its third week, indicating that it is more and more likely Iron Man 2 will struggle to reach Iron Man's $318.4 million final total.

Ridley Scott-Russell Crowe medieval epic Robin Hood was off 47 percent to $25.3 million. Its $72.7 million two-week haul may not be terribly cheerful, but the picture ranks as the third highest-grossing Medieval-themed movie on record and it's raked in another $137.8 million overseas.

Sex and the City 2 opened to $14.2 million on Thursday, which represents the sixth biggest-grossing Thursday opening on record. However, it's noticeably lower than Sex and the City's $26.8 million Friday opening two years ago.

Letters to Juliet is shaping up to be a minor success, easing 33 percent to $12.4 million. In two weeks, the Italy-set romance has drawn $30.7 million.

MacGruber ended its opening week with just $5.7 million, a terrible start for the adaptation of Saturday Night Live's MacGyver-like sketch. MacGruber's opening has the unfortunate distinction of ranking as 2010's worst first week for a movie playing at over 1,000 locations (click here to read Brandon Gray's analysis of the MacGruber disaster).

Kites finished the weekend in the Top Ten, but thanks to slow weekday business and Sex and the City 2's opening it dropped to 12th place for the week. Still, a $1.2 million opening week is a decent start for the Bollywood romance and, along with the recent success of 3 Idiots and My Name is Khan, furthers the niche for Bollywood movies.



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Seven-Day Summary: 'Iron Man 2' Slows in Second Week



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