By Ryan Parsons | Image property of 20th Century Fox
Angel
After a year of heart-breaking news to fans of the X-Men franchise, X-Men: The Last Stand, the third and supposed final installment in the series, has come out swinging at the box office. Like The Da Vinci Code released a week before, X3 was able to pull in some record box office numbers in the face of negative reviews.
X-Men: The Last Stand, Da Vinci Code BO
One major factor that X-Men: The Last Stand had going for it was the fact that the film fit your typical summer blockbuster romp and it entered into theatres after a previous week of action-less films. Though Da Vinci was able to shake up the box office with its adaptation of the best-selling novel of the same name, X-Men offered high-budget explosions.
And what more does the summer moviegoer want?
X-Men: The Last Stand was able to take in approximately $105 million over the three-day weekend and is expected to go on and make ~$124 million over the four-day weekend. X3's $105 million put it at the second best Friday-Sunday opening of all time; seating the film behind Spider-Man 2.
Though Sony feared what X3 would do to The Da Vinci Code's second weekend, the adaptation was able to bring in respectable second-weekend numbers at ~$35 million. It turns out, however, that Sony has long forgotten about the domestic totals and has been looking overseas ever since last week. With a foreign box office take that is expected to shoot north of $320M by the end of the weekend, even Da Vinci himself is throwing out a "cha ching!"
With a lack of any new big-budget tentpoles over the next week, expect X-Men and Da Vinci to keep raking it in.
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