Shrek Forever After continued its box office reign, beating back new films Sex and the City 2 and Prince of Persia to claim its second week atop the box office charts.
Sex and the City 2 had high hopes for box office domination, much as the original film did upon its release. Unfortunately, the R-rated film ran against the movie industry titan that is the family film. It is extremely difficult to compete with a family film in the summer movie season, as Sex and the City 2 discovered over the Memorial Day holiday weekend in its battle with Shrek Forever After.
Sex and the City 2 earned $51.4 million over the five-day weekend, just under $5 million less than the original earned in its three-day weekend debut.
Although Sexhad great word of mouth from Thursday midnight screenings and a majority of critics gave it decent reviews (SheKnows adored the film, our review was featured on Sex and the City 2 ads across TV and the Internet calling it “fun and fabulous”), it was not enough to push the Sarah Jessica Parker film past Shrek.
Shrek Forever After earned $55.7 million over the weekend while Jake Gyllenhaal’s Prince of Persia took in a paltry $37.8 million, nowhere near where it needed to be considering the film’s expensive $200 million budget.
In fact, it wasn’t a good weekend for anyone really at the box office. Numbers were down significantly as opposed to the same weekend last year. Memorial Day weekend is one of the largest and most profitable weekends of the movie year. Hollywood earned $186 million over the holiday weekend, it’s lowest total since 2001. Even worse for theater owners and studios is the fact that the American public purchased a total of 23.4 million tickets — the lowest holiday weekend total since 1993.
Read on for more box office hits
Sarah Jessica Parker talks Sex and the City 2
Shrek Forever After cast chats to SheKnows
The ladies of Sex and the City 2 dish
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