Weekend Box Office Results for June 29-July 1, 2012

Weekend Box Office Results for June 29-July 1, 2012

It was a spectacularly good week relative to expectations. The trio of Ted, Magic Mike and Medea was expected to gross about $80m over the weekend, but actually grossed $120m.

The big winner in the group was Ted, which doubled expectations, taking in $54m for first place. The all-time box office champ for R-rated comedies is The Hangover, and that opened with $44m! Ted was still far short of the record opening weekend for an R-rated comedy, which is the $85 million grossed by The Hangover II before people figured out they could just watch The Hangover again, see the same movie, and save a few bucks.

Magic Mike pulled in $39m for second place. Ted and MM were expected to finish 2-3, but ended up taking the top two slots away from Pixar's Brave.

Medea pulled in a solid $26m to take fourth place. Moonrise Kingdom expanded to 800 theaters and pulled in $5 million, enough for 8th place.

On the red side of the ledger, People Like Us was a nuclear bomb. It grossed $4 million in 2000 theaters. That's the worst opening of the year for a film in 2000+ theaters. It's the worst since last year's The Big Year, the widely ridiculed birdwatching "comedy," which grossed $3.2 million in 2100 theaters. The good news for Disney is that People Like Us was produced for a mere $16m and got generally favorable reviews, so the company's financial exposure is minimal and their prestige is intact. In comparison, that birdwatching thing ran up a $40m tab for a film which baffled critics with its utter insignificance. That probably sent a few Fox suits scurrying to update their resumes.