BOX OFFICE REPORT (MAY 24-26): 'Fast and Furious 6' Crushes Weekend; Party Ends for 'The Hangover Part III'

As I've mentioned before, I can't stand anyone or any site that uses four-day weekends to compare box office accomplishments. It totally skews everything. We'll only be discussing the three-day grosses in this article. 

Memorial Day Weekend delivered one of the best weekends the box office has seen in a long time, with four movies drawing more than $34 million and a fifth falling less than $1 million short of earning $20 million. Fast and Furious 6 had the franchise's best opening while The Hangover Part III fell extremely short of The Hangover Part II's franchise-best mark. It had been pretty clear for awhile that Fast and Furious 6 would top The Hangover Part III, but I don't think anyone expected the Wolfpacks' final outing to underperform as much as it did.

1. Fast and Furious 6 (N)
$98.53 million ($98.53 million)
Since Fast and Furious refocused the series in 2009, each installment has set a new franchise record when it comes to opening weekends. Fast and Furious earned $70.95 million, Fast Five brought in $86.20 million and now Fast and Furious 6 almost made $100 million. Not bad for a franchise that at one point was considering taking its talents to the direct-to-video arena. Fast and Furious 6 easily became the biggest opening weekend for both Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel. Will Fast and Furious 7 top this one next summer?

2. The Hangover Part III (N)

$42.42 million ($54.20 million)

The Hangover and The Hangover Part II currently stand as two of the top four highest grossing R-rated movies of all time, with The Hangover Part II having the second-highest opening weekend for an R-rated film. With a pedigree like that, The Hangover Part III should have cleaned up at the box office during its opening weekend. That didn't happen, though. The threequel turned in the franchise's lowest opening weekend and only claimed the No. 2 spot by $4 million.

So what happened to The Hangover Part III? Were fans let down so much by the last one that they failed to show up for this one? Putting The Hangover Part III up against Fast and Furious 6 was a dumb idea. These franchises have such an overlapping fanbase, it seems suicidal to not choose another weekend. Warner Bros. tried to get a jump on the weekend by moving the film up a day to open on Thursday, but all that did was syphon $11.79 million from The Hangover Part III's weekend potential.

3. Star Trek Into Darkness (1)

$38.00 million ($146.83 million)
For the second week in a row, Star Trek Into Darkness failed to match the respective gross of its 2009's predecessor. I still don't understand this one. I was poking around in the slum that is the Ain't It Cool News talkbacks over the weekend, and I found an overwhelming consensus that people should hate this movie. How do you reconcile that with the fact that Star Trek Into Darkness has an 87 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes?

4. Epic (N)

$34.20 million ($34.20 million)
Huh. Didn't expect this one. I don't have a personal opinion on Epic, besides the fact that I like Amanda Seyfried and the Aziz Ansari slug scenes in the trailer make me laugh, so I can't really say whether or not Epic should have made $34.20 million its opening weekend.

5. Iron Man 3 (2)

$19.42 million ($367.51 million)

Between last weekend and this weekend, Iron Man 3 went from being the ninth highest grossing movie in world history to being the fifth highest grossing movie of all time, raising its worldwide gross to $1.14 billion. The next big question for Iron Man 3 is how much more time it will take for the film to become the 17th flick to pass the $400 million mark.

Next week's predictions:

1. Fast and Furious 6

2. The Hangover Part III

3. After Earth

4. Star Trek Into Darkness

5. Now You See Me

SOURCE: Box Office Mojo