Weekend Recap: Shrek won’t go far, far away

Summer 2010 continues to disappoint at the box office with another mediocre weekend. With four new films getting wide releases, “Shrek Forever After” still remained on top with just about $25 million. The four new releases combined for around $50 million only.

With budgets less than $100 million, none of this is really terrifying to any of the studios, but Lionsgate has to have suffered the most damage as “Killers” cost $75 million in production and made only $16 M in week number one.

1. Shrek Forever After – $25.4 M (weekend) … $183.2 M (gross)
2. Get Him to the Greek – $17.5 M … $17.5 M
3. Killers – $15.8 M … $15.8 M
4. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – $14 M … $59.6 M
5. Sex and the City 2 – $12.3 M … $73.1 M
6. Marmaduke – $11.5 M … $11.5 M
7. Iron Man 2 – $7.9 M  … $291.4 M
8. Splice – $7.3 M … $7.3 M
9. Robin Hood – $5.3 M … $94.4 M
10. Letters to Juliet – $3 M … $43.3 M

Sci-fi horror film “Splice” had a respectable opening for what a wide release that was nothing more than gravy while “Marmaduke” had a surprisingly unremarkable debut for a film with dogs that talk.

As for the returners, nothing has shown any surprise staying power. “Sex and the City 2” fell 60 percent, the most of any film without a change in the number of theaters. “Prince of Persia” fell more than 50 percent as well, as did the May action films, “Iron Man 2” and “Robin Hood.”