"X-Men" Posts Strong $56 Million Opening, Tops Box Office Charts

6/6/2011 12:17 PM ET

(RTTNews) - With a per theater average of more than $15,000, "X-Men: First Class" is off to a good start for distributor Fox and looks to be set up for a solid box office run over the next couple of weeks. While action audiences poured into see "X-Men," plenty of adults were left for "The Hangover Part II," which continued its unprecedented box office run by hauling in $32 million in its second weekend. "Kung Fu Panda 2" also posted a decent weekend to push its domestic total to $100 million in its first 11 days and "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" continued its dominance with foreign audiences.

Backed by mostly gushing critical reviews and strong user responses, "X-Men: First Class" swept into theaters and earned a studio estimated $56 million over the weekend. After the last couple of "X-Men" releases saw a significant decline in popularity, Fox rebooted the franchise and released "First Class" at 458 less theaters than "X-Men Origins: Wolverine." Even if $56 million isn't a tremendous total for a $160 million production, it's still a decent start for a reboot using an entirely new cast and story angle.
With the fairly successful weekend, it looks like "First Class" should continue to pull in action audiences over the next few weeks, even with some significant competition from "Super 8" and "The Green Lantern." "First Class" is already off to a decent start overseas as well, pushing its worldwide total to $120 million in its first weekend. Though "First Class" won't likely touch the gaudy numbers that some of the earlier "X-Men" releases posted, it still looks to be a successful reboot that will likely warrant future installments in the new series.
A movie that is also encouraging future installments is "The Hangover Part II," the R-rated comedy that continues to draw in enormous crowds and post tremendous early box office totals. With a $32 million second weekend, "Part II" is already up to $186 million in domestic receipts and appears to be the most lucrative release of 2011 so far. Considering that it has a production budget roughly one-third the cost of "Pirates of the Caribbean," the box office totals of "The Hangover Part II" are fairly incredible.
Most comedies also struggle to appeal to audiences outside of the U.S., though that's clearly not the case with "The Hangover Part II." "Part II" is already up to $338 million worldwide and should cruise past $500 million sometime in the next couple of weeks, making it one of the most successful comedies of all-time. The $527 million of "The Simpsons Movie" is the all-time top worldwide total for a comedy, a mark that "The Hangover Part II" has a very good chance to surpass.
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