Kids Love Brain-Damaged Tow Trucks, Adults Love Cameron Diaz's Filthy Mouth, and Other Box Office News

Still sort of confused about the presence of planes. Are they genetic mutations or something? Are they like the flipper babies of the Cars world?

Cars 2 made money. A lot of it. Go ahead and get your expressions of shock and awe out of the way now. I'll wait.

Good? Good. With an estimated $68 million in ticket sales, Cars 2 was, of course, a huge success. It's neck-and-neck with Up's opening for the fourth-highest ever for the studio, and pretty well outdid the original Cars. Interestingly, despite more than half the movie's screens being 3D, the 3D revenue only made up 40% of the movie's total business. This week's debut of Transformers 3 seems like it's going to be the last big gasp for 3D for a little while, and in a way, might be the last hope for future 3D blockbuster projects. If that movie, with all its insane demands for its 3D presentation, can't engender some good word of mouth, this whole thing seems as good as dead.

More surprising than anything related to Cars 2 or 3D was the performance of Bad Teacher, which defied expectations, good taste, and common sense to earn $31 million its opening weekend. Perhaps it was the brilliant marketing campaign in which Cameron Diaz is alluded to drink, smoke, and make multiple lewd allusions to both performing oral sex and having oral sex performed on her, or maybe people without kids just needed something stupid to see this weekend. Whatever.

Bad news for those following along with Tree of Life watch 2011. Looks like it won't crack the top 10, as despite an increase to over 200 screens, Terrence Malick's film only increased 16% from last weekend, and ranked 12th overall. Maybe it's because of shit like this.

The rest of the indie market this weekend was rather tepid, with the only significant release, the performance documentary Conan O'Brien Can't Stop (which Pope rather liked) only earning around $105,000 on 24 screens. The indie dramas Passione and A Better Life both made a little over $15,000 per-screen on less than 5 screens each, but I seriously have no idea what either of those movies even are. One sounds foreign, and one sounds like inspirational bullshit. Where are the major American stars dropping f-bombs? Where are the talking cars exploding things? It's like idiotic entertainment doesn't mean anything anymore, man. Won't someone please think of the children? And poop jokes?

Ahem, anyway. Let's wander on to the top ten list, and see just how far Green Lantern fell in its second weekend. Hint: IT WAS A BUNCH.

	1. Cars 2 $68 million / NEW It's easy to get cynical about so many people seeing a kinda crummy animated movie, but even Pixar was due for a bad movie eventually. The pedigree, plus the insane amount of merchandise the first movie sold (the video game sold 13 million copies--13 million!!!), this was just gonna happen.
	2. Bad Teacher $31 million / NEW Not that the two are comparable outside of blatant pilfering of inspiration, but Bad Santa made $12 million upon its debut eight years ago. The pale imitation has out-performed the master. Truly, this is the darkest of days.
	3. Green Lantern $18.4 million / $89.3 million That's a big old 65% drop from last weekend, and with seemingly only minimal gains being made overseas, I don't see this making back its absurd budget prior to its home video release. Oh DC, you poor, deluded bastards, you.
	4. Super 8 $12.1 million / $95.2 million Am I an asshole if I say, "Super 8 remains super at the box office!"? Yes? Well, I said it anyway. So I'm an asshole. Great.
	5. Mr. Popper's Penguins $10.3 million / $39.5 million "Mr. Popper continues to flopper!" Okay, see that one was a little funny, right? No? Still an asshole? Shit.
	6. X-Men: First Class $6.6 million / $132.8 million "X-Men still head of the class!" See, okay, you've gotta give me that one. It's got all the relevant terminology, it's accurate, it's great stuff. I could totally write for Variety!
	7. The Hangover Part II $5.8 million / $243.9 million "The Hangover has a..." wait, does that say $243.9 million dollars? Just in America alone? Holy hooker's head in a Thai handbasket! The international numbers are even more insane! Over $500 million! For a lazy comedic sequel! I need to get busy on writing my Bridesmaids sequel script!
	8. Bridesmaids $5.4 million / $146.7 million Bridesmaids Part II: The Lesbian Gets Married This Time! This shit totally writes itself!
	9. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides $4.7 million / $229.1 million Pirates of the Caribbean: Now There's Time Travel for Some Reason! God, this stuff is gold. Hey! Don't steal my brilliant, profitable movie ideas!
	10. Midnight in Paris $4.5 million / $28.6 million Midnight in Paris II: Now Luke Wilson is the Woody Allen Surrogate! Eh, actually, that one kind of sucks.

Dropped Out: Kung Fu Panda 2; Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer

Source: Box Office Mojo