The Box-Office Top Five
#1 "Iron Man" $50.5 million
#2 "Speed Racer" $20.2 million
#3 "What Happens in Vegas" $20 million
#4 "Made of Honor" $7.6 million
#5 "Baby Mama" $5.8 million
An advertisement running on television this weekend urged moviegoers to celebrate Mother's Day by taking Mom to see "Speed Racer" — but as it turns out, Mommy dearests apparently prefer superheroic billionaire playboys in red-and-yellow metallic ensembles.
For a second consecutive weekend, the certified blockbuster "Iron Man" topped the box office, this time taking in $50.5 million in ticket sales. It was a strong sophomore frame for Jon Favreau's take on Tony Stark, and continues to position the seemingly invincible "Iron Man" as the summer sensation to beat.
Meanwhile, "Speed Racer" was hoping to go, go, go — but stalled out at the starting line. While the film's billboards boasted that the live-action anime update was from "the creators of the 'Matrix' trilogy," moviegoers apparently realized that such a boast linked the flick to those two bad "Matrix" films as well, and the $120 million movie took in only $20.2 million. It probably didn't help that the racing flick received the worst summer-movie reviews since "Evan Almighty."
Cheer up, ascot-wearing Speed-freaks: You narrowly swerved around an even worse disaster. The Ashton Kutcher-battles-Cameron Diaz romantic comedy "What Happens in Vegas" nearly crept into the #2 slot, finishing just $200,000 behind "Speed Racer." Mad props to the "Punk'd" mastermind and "Charlie's Angels" eye-candy for successfully counterprogramming the weekend, as those who weren't into comic book or anime adaptations took shelter in the familiar arms of attractive people in love.
The romantic-comedy embrace held strong with the #4 movie "Made of Honor," as Patrick Dempsey continued his McDreamy run at the box office. The film, about a man in love with the woman who asks him to be her chief bridesmaid, took in $7.6 million in its second weekend.
For the most part, the rest of the top 10 featured strong-holding favorites from the last few weeks. Among this crowd was "Baby Mama" ($5.8 million), "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" ($3.8 million), "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" ($3.2 million), "The Forbidden Kingdom" ($1.9 million) and "Nim's Island" ($1.3 million). David Mamet's anti-fighting action flick "Redbelt" is proving to be a nice little hit for the word-wielding playwright, as it took in $1.1 million in a fraction of the theaters afforded to the big guys.
Does "Iron Man" have enough left in the tank for another top-spot weekend? That'll be the big question next Friday as "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" joins the battle. Wisely, Hollywood has kept any other major release away from the sequel to "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which debuted in 2005 with a $65 million frame. As long as this new "Narnia" doesn't involve monkeys, speeding cars and bright colors, Tony Stark may have finally met his match.
‘Iron Man’ Soars With Historic Box-Office Debut
