Weekend Box Office: May 13-15

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  Thor - $34.7 million

2.  Bridesmaids - $26.2 million

3.  Fast Five - $20.4 million

4.  Priest - $14.9 million

5.  Rio - $8.2 million

6.  Jumping the Broom - $7 million

7.  Something Borrowed - $6.8 million

8.  Water for Elephants - $4.2 million

9.  Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family - $2.2 million

10.  Soul Surfer - $1.8 million

While Thor kept the top spot at the box office as expected with a solid $34.7 million, the real story of this weekend is the spectacular performance of Bridesmaids.  Yes, Hollywood is apparently shocked (shocked!) that women are indeed capable of pulling off a raunchy, R-rated comedy just as well as the guys are, but that's exactly what happened with the Kristen Wiig comedy this weekend, which also marks the best debut for a Saturday Night Live cast member in a non-SNL role since Will Ferrell went streaking in 2003's Old School.  Word-of-mouth on this one has been nothing short of terrific...so you better watch your ass, Hangover 2.

On the superhero front, Thor managed to avoid the second-weekend plunges of both Iron Man 2 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, dropping a mere 47% to bring its domestic total to a not-bad-for-a-lesser-known-comic-book-character $119 million.  The boost from 3D/IMAX ticket sales certainly helped with that, but hey...it's a good movie.  It's doing even better overseas, where it has so far grossed $225 million.

As also predicted, no one really cared about this weekend's other new release, Priest, which earned just $14.9 million.  Expect this one to sink the rest of the way to obscurity when Pirates 4 invades theaters next weekend.  Fast Five, in the meantime, continues its impressive run with $20.4 million.  That movie is doing even better than Thor, with $441 million worldwide and counting.

Rio's $8.2 million this weekend pushed it past Rango to become 2011's highest-grossing animated film.  It faces some big competition with sequels to Kung Fu Panda and Cars opening soon, but its $125 million haul so far (not to mention the additional $303 million it's earned overseas) has given it a good run.

Next weekend marks the return of Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.  Have they fixed the stuff that went kinda wrong in the last two sequels?  I certainly hope so.