As promised yesterday, an update on the U.S. Memorial Day weekend box office. Leonard Klady at MovieCityNews.com (from whence the chart you see above was ‘appropriated’), weighs in with his informative analysis.
John Hamann, at Box Office Prophets offers the folks at 20th Century Fox some degree of succour with this piece of heartening news: “the gross for Day sets a record as the biggest second-place gross ever.”
Meanwhile, the folks at IMDB’s Studio Briefing inform us that the two top films which opened this Memorial Day weekend have established a new box office record, besting last year’s record-breaking grosses of $85.7 million for Jim Carrey’s Bruce Almighty, and $45.6 million for The Matrix Reloaded.

The Day After Tomorrow ad satire

Perhaps satirical ads, such as the one to the right — not to mention, some pretty savage reviews — hurt the opening box office for this weekend’s summer blockbuster, The Day After Tomorrow, but as far as VanRamblings is concerned, Roland Emmerich’s film has proved to be the most entertaining of the summer blockbusters thus far in 2004, even if the story and dialogue are a tad clichéd.
Seems the movie-going public didn’t agree, though. Now, let’s get real for a moment: taking in a three-day box office total of $70, in its first weekend, can’t be considered small change, but with no spike in the Saturday box office over Friday, salutary box office in the days to come hardly holds out much hope of turning the disaster epic into a summer blockbuster smash. Oh well. Still, Monday is a holiday in the U.S., and final figures will probably spike some.
With The Day After Tomorrow in second, Shrek once again emerged as the box office winner, taking in a gross of $73.1 million, for a record-setting $238,800,000 12-day total. Troy ran a distant third at $11.5 million, while Touchstone’s Kate Hudson-starring domestic comedy, Raising Helen, took in a modest $11.2 million in its opening weekend. The only other newcomer this week, Snoop Dogg’s Soul Plane, crashed on take-off.
When Memorial Day figures are published on Monday — this is a long weekend in the U.S., after all — VanRamblings will update this story, with links to various sites which provide perspective on the weekend box office.

Although VanRamblings had predicted a couple of days ago that Shrek 2 was on its way to setting a box office record for the month of May, in fact, the Dreamworks release clobbered its way to 3-day weekend record, to become — along with Spiderman — only the second film ever to cross the $100 million mark Friday to Sunday.
How much has Shrek 2 raked in since last Wednesday? Would you believe $125,300,000? If figures hold when final numbers are released on Monday, the total box office will set a new record for a Wednesday release, besting the $124.1 million earned by Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King last December.

Michael Moore’s controversial new documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11 — a scathing indictment of White House actions after the Sept. 11 attacks — has won the Palme D’Or at the 57th annual Cannes Film Festival, the first documentary to ever do so.
“I have this great hope that things are going to change,” said Moore after tearing into Bush with his emotion-charged documentary in the run-up to November’s presidential election.
With Moore’s customary blend of humour and polemic, Fahrenheit 9/11 accuses the Bush camp of stealing the 2000 election, overlooking terrorism warnings before Sept. 11 and fanning fears of more attacks to secure Americans’ support for the Iraq war.
For information on the other winners at Cannes, click on the Indie Wire.