The Smurfs drew Cowboys & Aliens to a draw at the weekend box office, with an estimated $36.2 million opening that nobody, but nobody some coming.
Well, all right, maybe Brainy Smurf. He seems pretty on the ball.
The Smurfs overwhelmed Cowboys & Aliens (and Captain America and Harry Potter and…) on the strength of family business.
More than half of all moviegoers were parents with kids who'd memorized the commercial. (Boy, whoever said the trailer was terrible?)
As for Cowboys & Aliens—its $36.2 million estimated Friday-Sunday take looks considerably less impressive, considering its cast (Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford), its director (Iron Man's Jon Favreau) and its price tag ($163 million versus The Smurfs' reported $110 million).
The race between the The Smurfs and Cowboys & Aliens won't be settled for good until Monday's final numbers.
Whether it ends up No. 1 or No. 2, The Smurfs has already won.
Cowboys & Aliens, meanwhile, may already be wondering if maybe it should've been called Cowboys & Gargamel's Hated Ones. (Or, if it should've screened in 3-D, like you-know-which little big blue movie.)
Elsewhere, Captain America was very much the one-and-done box-office champ. In its second weekend, the movie fell almost as hard as Green Lantern, but blew past the $100 million mark domestically—something Green Lantern didn't do until its third weekend.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ended the Sorcerer's Stone's nearly 10-year run as the top-grossing Harry Potter film in the United States. But the film's fast fall off means Transformers: Dark of the Moon remains the year's top-grossing movie.
Crazy, Stupid, Love, the ensemble comedy with Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and more, got off to an OK start.
Here's a complete look at the weekend's top-grossing films, per Friday-Sunday estimates as compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
1. Cowboys & Aliens, $36.2 million (tie)
1. The Smurfs, $36.2 million (tie)
3. Captain America: The First Avenger, $24.9 million
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, $21.9 million
5. Crazy, Stupid, Love, $19.3 million
6. Friends With Benefits, $9.3 million
7. Horrible Bosses, $7.1 million
8. Transformers: Dark of the Moon, $6 million
9. Zookeeper, $4.2 million
10. Cars 2, $2.3 million