If you thought everyone was glued to the tube watching last night’s NBA Finals, you were right. LeBron fans (or foes) took a big bite out of Sunday night’s North American box office numbers. TV ratings were 50% higher than last year, affecting the male-skewing films in the evening like Super 8 ($9.3M), X-Men: First Class ($6.4M), and The Hangover Part II ($4.4M), which all missed their Sunday estimates by between $800K and $1.6 million. That means Super 8 ended the weekend at $35.4M (not $37M) with a cume of $36.4M (not $38M):
1. Super 8 (Bad Robot/Amblin/Paramount) NEW [3,379 Runs]
Friday $12.2M, Saturday $14M, Sunday $9.3M, Weekend $35.4M, Cume $36.4M
2. X-Men: First Class (Fox) Week 2 [3,692 Runs]
Friday $8M, Saturday $10.1M, Sunday $6.4M, Weekend $23.7M (-57%), Cume $97.6M
3. The Hangover Part II (Warner Bros) Week 3 [3,644 Runs]
Friday $5.7M, Saturday $7.6M, Sunday $4.4M, Weekend $17.7M, Cume $215.8M
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.


(Anti) LeBron fans.
Watching LeFraud get his egotistical ass handed to him on his home court was far more entertaining than all three of those movies combined, and I really enjoyed Super 8 and X-Men!
It couldn’t be that word of mouth about those 3 mediocre films spread quickly?
Um, no. I was trying to buy a ticket for the sold-out matinee of “The Trip” in Pasadena yesterday (one of the smaller weekend surprises, I think, was the success this had in limited release). A guy behind me opted against buying a ticket to the next show specifically because of the basketball game.
umm, The Trip was great but wasn’t one of those 3 films!
Or the studios just estimated badly?