Hollywood tried something it rarely does this Memorial Day weekend: it opened two huge sequels at the same time. The last time anything remotely similar happened was the same holiday weekend in 2005 with “The Longest Yard” and “Madagascar.” They were really just fighting for second place, though, as the second weekend of “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” was a safe bet for number one.
This year’s Memorial Day champ is Ben Stiller with “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.” The family comedy earned $53.5 million for the weekend and will have another solid day of business during the holiday tomorrow. That’s better than the $33.4 million debut of the original but that film opened during Christmas and had outstanding legs through early 2007. Its total gross of $266 million is completely out of the question for the sequel now.
The debut is pretty much exactly the same as the second place debut of “Madagascar” from the aforementioned 2005 time frame and that film wasn’t even a sequel. With no other family films in the market, this has to be considered a little soft for Fox.
Second place goes to “Terminator Salvation” with $43 million for the weekend and $56.4 million since opening on Thursday. Again, Warner Bros. has to see this as a little soft as after four days in 2003, “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” was already at $70.4 million. Terrible reviews, as well as competition from “Star Trek,” helped seal McG’s fate and I can’t see word of mouth getting this anywhere higher than $135 million. International grosses will decide whether his planned trilogy comes to fruition or not.