Cars 2 was the number one attraction in North America at the weekend, scoring Pixar’s 12th straight number one opening weekend..

The launch came in slightly above Disney’s modest expectations and defied a largely unfavourable critical response to the sequel.

Cars 2 ruled the international box office too on $42.9m, resulting in a $110.9mm global weekend after three days. This was an impressive launch for Disney/Pixar: by comparison Cars launched on $60.1m in June 2006, which amounts to approximately $67m when adjusted for inflation.

Meanwhile crowds were in the mood for a naughty but nice Cameron Diaz in Sony’s Bad Teacher, which opened well in second place on $31m. Sony said approximately 63% of audiences were female.

Warner Bros’ Green Lantern dropped a hefty 66% in its second weekend, adding $18.4m for $89.3m. Universal’s great summer continues with the ongoing success of Bridesmaids, which should cross $150m by next weekend.

According to Associated Press overall revenues climbed 6.7% on the same weekend last year, although year-to-date figure trails that of 2010 by 7.6%.

Next weekend’s wide releases are Paramount-DreamWorks’ Transformers: Dark Of The Moon with Shia LaBeouf; Fox’s rom-com Monte Carlo; and Universal’s rom-com Larry Crowne reuniting Tom Hanks with his Charlie Wilson’s War co-star Julia Roberts.

Estimated Top 10 North America Jun 24-26, 2011
Film (Dist) / Est wkd gross / Est total to date

1 (-) Cars 2 (Buena Vista/Pixar) WDSMPI $68m –

2 (-) Bad Teacher (Sony) SPRI $31m –

3 (1) Green Lantern (Warner Bros) WBPI $18.4m $89.3m

4 (2) Super 8 (Paramount) PPI $12.1m $95.2m

5 (3) Mr Popper’s Penguins (Fox) Fox Int’l $10.3m $39.4m

6 (4) X-Men: First Class (Fox) Fox Int’l $6.6m $132.8m

7 (5) The Hangover Part II (Warner Bros) WBPI $5.9m $243.9m

8 (7) Bridesmaids (Universal) UPI $5.4m $146.7m

9 (8) Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Buena Vista) WDSMPI $4.7m $229.1m

10 (9) Midnight In Paris (Sony Pictures Classics) Imagina $4.5m $28.6m

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