It was a given Up was going to be the weekend's No. 1 movie. It was not a given it was going to be bigger, all-time, than all but two Pixar movies.
But it was.
The animated tale of a 78-year-old curmudgeon grossed $68.1 million Friday-Sunday, final numbers showed, blowing past the likes of WALL-E and Cars.
Elsewhere, Star Trek hit a new milestone, Terminator Salvation fell hard and fast, and Drag Me to Hell, Sam Raimi's return to gore, was no Spider-Man. Or Catwoman, for that matter.
Drilling down into the numbers:
• So are senior citizens really more marketable than talking race cars? "I think the sell was easier than that," Disney distribution president Chuck Viane said Sunday. "We sold a great story. We showed a great comedy."
• Among Disney/Pixar's nine wide-release debuts, Up ranks behind only The Incredibles ($70.5 million) and Finding Nemo ($70.3 million). Its weekend was a $5 million improvement over last summer's WALL-E.
• Up scored the year's first A-plus from moviegoers polled by CinemaScore, Disney said.
• Drag Me to Hell ($15.8 million) was unable to drag down Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian ($24.5 million) or Terminator Salvation ($16.4 million). The horror movie settled for fourth place (after estimates had it in third place), while the Stiller comedy, its crown usurped by Up, took second, and Salvation slipped to third.
• Originally noted in this space as an R-rated movie, Drag Me to Hell is actually rated PG-13. So, apologies to The Unborn for not noting that it was one of several PG-13-rated horror flicks that enjoyed bigger debuts this year than Drag Me to Hell.
• Battle of the Smithsonian and Angels & Demons ($11.4 million) became the eighth and the ninth 2009 films, respectively, to gross at least $100 million. Smithsonian's two-weekend take stands at $104.2 million. After three weekends, Angels & Demons has grossed $104.9 million.
• On Wednesday, Star Trek overtook Monsters vs. Aliens as the year's top-grossing movie. On Friday, the sci-fi reboot became the year's first $200 million movie. As of Sunday, its overall haul stood at $209.3 million.
• With Up around, Monsters vs. Aliens lost more than half its theaters. It managed another $320,040 and fell out of the Top 10 after a nine-weekend run.
• Terminator Salvation suffered the biggest second-week drop of any Terminator movie, including the unbeloved third installment: 61 percent.
Here's a complete look at the weekend's top-grossing films based on final Friday-Sunday stats as compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
- Up, $68.1 million
- Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, $24.4 million
- Terminator Salvation, $16.4 million
- Drag Me to Hell, $15.9 million
- Star Trek, $12.6 million
- Angels & Demons, $11.4 million
- Dance Flick, $4.7 million
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine, $3.9 million
- Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, $1.9 million
- Obsessed, $677,001
(Originally published May 31, 2009, at 10:30 a.m. PT)