Weekend Box Office: June 8-10

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted - $60.3 million

2.  Prometheus - $50 million

3.  Snow White and the Huntsman - $23 million

4.  Men in Black 3 - $13.5 million

5.  The Avengers - $10.8 million

6.  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - $3.2 million

7.  What to Expect When You're Expecting - $2.7 million

8.  Battleship - $2.2 million

9.  The Dictator - $2.1 million

10.  Moonrise Kingdom - $1.5 million

Kids ruled the box office this weekend as Madagascar 3 won the box office with an estimated $60.3 million.  That a bit below the first weekend of Madagascar 2's $63.1 million in 2008, but it still did fine, especially since there really hasn't been a big animated family movie out since The Lorax opened earlier this year. 

That leaves Prometheus, Ridley Scott's sorta-Alien prequel in second place with an estimated $50 million for the weekend.  Predictions for this weekend's final tally have been all over the place since starting out of the gate strong on Friday, with $3.6 million for the midnight openings and actually besting Madagascar for the day with a better-tan-expected $21.4 million.  But grosses tapered off as the weekend progressed - not to mention that a family friend kid film will generally beat an R-rated horror/sci-fi movie every time - so it appeared to be very frontloaded.  General reaction to the film seems to be mixed (I liked it - scary as hell and the best 3D I've seen in a long time), so it will be interesting to see how this holds up as the summer moves on.

Speaking of lousy word-of-mouth, Snow White and the Huntsman dropped nearly 60% since opening in first place last weekend.  The film earned $23 million to bring its domestic total to $98, so it while it will pass the $100 million make, I wouldn't start making plans to see that sequel Universal apparently wants to start on just yet.

As far as this weekend's milestones, The Hunger Games officially passed the $400 millon mark this weekend, and The Avengers got that much closer to $600 million domestically, currently standing at $571 million.

Still in limited release, Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom expanded to 96 theaters and cracked the top 10 for the first time with $1.5 million.

Next weekend, get prepared to rock out 80s-style as the musical Rock of Ages opens in theaters, which sounds a far better option than Adam Sandler showing up to bother us all again with the terribly unfunny looking That's My Boy, which also opens next weekend.