By Scott Bowles, USA TODAYPosted 6h 23m ago | 24 | 2
Share
Reprints & Permissions
Transformers: Dark of the Moon didn't do much morphing this week at theaters as the action film held onto the top spot at the box office for the second consecutive weekend and became the highest-grossing movie of the year.
Bumblebee helps lead Transformers: Dark of the Moon to the top spot this weekend and the biggest grossing movie this year.
The Michael Bay spectacle racked up $47 million this weekend, according to studio estimates from box office trackers Hollywood.com.
The encore was largely expected as the 3-D picture became just the fourth movie of the year to do at least $200 million. The film has done $261 million in two weeks, surpassing The Hangover, PartII's $250.8 million as the biggest movie of 2011.
The film will likely hold the box office crown "until a certain teen wizard arrives" Friday in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, says Gitesh Pandya of boxofficeguru.com.
Transformers held off a couple of high-profile comedies. On the shoulders of strong reviews, the R-rated Horrible Bosses did $28.1 million, about $3 million above expectations.
Bosses earned recommendations from 73% of the nation's critics, according to amalgam site rottentomatoes.com.
"It's been a terrific summer for R-rated comedies," says Pandya, who notes that Hangover, Bridesmaids and Bad Teacher have done more than $450 million this season.
Critics weren't as kind to Kevin James' Zookeeper, which did $21 million, meeting most projections. Just 15% of critics recommended the picture, according to rottentomatoes.com. But the movie earned a B-plus from film graders Cinemascore. And about 56% of moviegoers gave the film a thumbs-up, rottentomatoes.com says, helping the movie to solid if unremarkable numbers.
Cars 2 was fourth with $15.2 million, followed by Bad Teacher's $9 million. Final figures are due Monday.
Despite Transformers flexing collective metal muscle, summer ticket sales continue to nosedive. Sales fell behind the same weekend last year for the fourth time in five weeks. For the first time in summer, attendance dropped behind 2010's summer pace. Attendance is down about 3% from the same time last summer, hollywood.com says.
