From Box Office Mojo Thanks, in part, to the most embarrassing promotional tie-in campaign of all time, Man of Steel *soared to a new June record by opening with an impressive $125M at the domestic box office. Seriously, can you remember a film that shilled for more brand products than this flick? “When Superman has a Superflow, he uses Tampax!” Since monetary inflation is entirely ignored to inflate (irony!) the importance of current box office receipts, records are basically superfluous, but it’s still a heck of a total. Warner Bros desperately needed a new signature franchise before the inevitable reboot of Batman and Harry Potter (Samuel L. Jackson as Dumbledore please) so Man of Steel‘s weekend take should keep the exec’s cocaine and Thai prostitute inventory stocked for a while. It’s also good news for people hoping to finally see Aquaman on the big screen. WB wanted to see the Supes’ receipts before bankrolling a Justice League adaptation to compete with Marvel’s The Avengers. Given Iron Man 3‘s rightful defeat of Man of Steel at the cineplex, Marvel’s golden boots aren’t exactly shaking. I was a little surprised to see my Facebook News Feed blow up on Saturday with an overwhelmingly negative reaction to the son of Jor-El’s newest incarnation. I didn’t love it by any means, but it had its moments. I expected to be on the receiving end of “screw you douche, Superman was awesome!” but I found myself meekly defending it. SuperJesus punched out evolution, what more do you people want!? Speaking of Jesus, in second place this weekend is a movie I liked more than I probably should have. Seth Rogen’s directorial debut This Is The End is half way to making its budget back with a take of $32M. I say half way because the theatrical gross for a studio is around 50% after the theaters take their cut. That percentage differs of course, but that’s the general rule of thumb. With a production budget of $32M, This Is The End should at least break even by the time it’s raptured out of theaters. On the production budget side, that doesn’t include promotion and advertising. Even with P&A, it should be all right. As a point of comparison, on the production budget side alone, The Lone Ranger needs to gross over $400M just to make its money back. Yeesh. For Disney’s sake, let’s hope The Lone Ranger has a gigantic, be-penised demon other than Army Hammer. I don’t know what that joke means, if you do, please explain in the comments. Now You See Me inexplicably took third place over the weekend. I haven’t seen it but Janelle Burmaster did and her recounting of the event leads me to believe I made the right decision. The rest of America seems to have made the opposite decision as the magician caper is the surprise hit of the summer so far. If you had told me in the spring that an ensemble movie about magic would out gross the Will Smith sci-fi joint I would have asked you to leave because clearly you were drunk. Alcohol = Truth. Fast and Furious 6 decelerated into fourth place, bringing its world wide grand total to $636M. It’s nice to know that in this time of global upheaval, we can still come together as a species and guarantee that every Fast sequel will be more successful than the last. And finally, rounding out your top five is Ethan Hawke’s yacht downpayment, The Purge. A movie with a concept so high, the animated marsupial from Kangaroo Jack is still dizzy with...

From Box Office Mojo Now You See Me *made magic over the weekend by grossing well over its expected return. Despite that surprise, and a steep 65% drop from Memorial Day weekend, Fast & Furious 6 avoided *spinning out by managing to remain in first place. The Smith Family sci-fi home video After Earth rightfully came in third with a take on par with recent genre stinkers. 1. Fast & Furious 6 It looks like the majority of people who were going to see FF6 did so last week as the automotive caper sank to a weekend gross of $34M. Don’t cry for Vin Diesel just yet because with a worldwide total of $480M, FF6 is on pace to (sigh) speed past its predecessors’ total with relative ease. Given the trend of each successive Fast & Furious sequel out-grossing the previous one, I’ve already got my headline for the seventh installment cued up:   “Fastest Fast 7 Vroom Pew Pew 7 Kaboom Crossed The Finish Line First This Weekend”   2. Now You See Me With a Tomatometer score of 44% and the fact that Americans tend to ignore films based on illusions or magicians, Now You See Me’s $28M was a surprise to everyone. That being said, with a production budget of $75M (before P&A) and a slate of high profile releases approaching, its going to be interesting to see if NYSM can make its money back. Unrelated true story, my wife and I were having dinner the other day and a gentleman came up to our table holding a wallet. He asked if I had dropped mine by chance. As I was checking to see if I had, he said, “wait, no, this looks like mine” and pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket. Both my wife and I looked at each other with “sonofabitch” in our eyes. We had to sit through ten minutes of card tricks. Well played table magician. Let that be a lesson to the beginning illusionists out there. Like all decent people who don’t want to be bothered while we’re eating, we’re going to say no. Your best trick is not letting us do that. I didn’t see either Fast & Furious 6 or Now You See Me but I hope that America enjoyed watching them as much as I enjoyed skipping them.   3. After Earth Scratch that. I would’ve happily sat through both FF6 and NYSM instead of this stillborn effort from the loins of Will Smith and the butt of M. Night Shyamalan. Thankfully this turd is all but flushed with a meek $27M opening. We get into the ins-and-outs of its ineptitude on tomorrow’s F&N Podcast so I’ll be brief here and say that $27M is still way too much.       4/5. Star Trek Into Darkness & Epic Star Trek Into Darkness fell to 4th and 5th place this weekend in a dead-heat with the low-key animated flick Epic. Both took in an estimated $16.4M. At this point, STID not only trails the 2009 entry, but looks like it could finish below it when all is said and done. There isn’t much time to match the first one’s $257M domestic total but its possible, unlikely but possible that the foreign market will save the day. I’m having a hard time explaining this as anything other than a marketing blunder. Or maybe global warming. I don’t know or care about Epic but if you saw it last weekend and enjoyed it, you had a better time at the theater than I did. Don’t get cocky...