BOX OFFICE REPORT (MAY 17-19): 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Sets Phasers to No. 1, But Can't Match Last Film's Opening

Good news, bad news for Star Trek Into Darkness — the sequel to JJ Abrams' 2009's Star Trek reboot debuted to the second-best opening weekend for any film in the franchise. Unfortunately, it wound up trailing Star Trek itself, which opened to $75.2 million four years ago. Many analysts predicted that Star Trek Into Darkness would do better than its predecessor, possibly even cracking the $100 million opening weekend mark. So what held this sequel back? Was it a nice summer weekend? Did people want to go outside? Did the film's overwhelmingly positive reviews (87 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) get drowned out by the very vocal few reviewers who disliked Star Trek Into Darkness?

As for the rest of the top five, Iron Man 3 has now not only outgrossed every other Iron Man movie but every other Marvel Cinematic Universe movie with the exception of The Avengers. Not bad for a film that's only just wrapped up its third weekend. Iron Man 3 is also already the 25th highest grossing film domestically.

1. Star Trek Into Darkness (N)
$70.56 million ($84.09 million)
Despite Abrams' name being on almost every other movie, he's only directed four of them: Star Trek, Mission: Impossible III, Super 8 and Star Trek Into Darkness. While it wasn't a hard feat, Star Trek Into Darkness is now Abrams' second-highest opening weekend. I'm guessing that a certain Star Wars sequel will completely change his career scorecard in 2015.

2. Iron Man 3 (1)

$35.18 million ($337.07 million)

It's easy to focus on Iron Man 3's domestic box office accomplishments, but its international feats are even more impressive. In only a few weeks, Marvel's latest movie has already become the ninth highest grossing film in world history, while also becoming just the 16th movie to even pass $1 billion.

3. The Great Gatsby (2)

$23.42 million ($90.16 million)
It took just two weekends for The Great Gatsby to become director Baz Luhrmann's all-time highest grossing movie. Crazy, huh? Warner Bros. had a hunch The Great Gatsby could be a summer hit, but I don't think the studio guessed it would be this big of a hit.

4. Pain and Gain (3)

$3.10 million ($46.57 million)
And then the box office takes a steep $20 million drop from No. 3 to No. 4. Anything after The Great Gatsby should be happy to have been asked to play this past weekend.

5. The Croods (7)

$2.75 million ($176.75 million)

How many movies are playing at the box office right now? Stop giving this one money.

Next week's predictions:

1. Fast and Furious 6

2. The Hangover Part III

3. Star Trek Into Darkness

4. Iron Man 3

5. The Great Gatsby

SOURCE: Box Office Mojo