THIS WEEKEND With
Hollywood dumping its weakest films into theaters, moviegoers understandably
stayed away from the multiplexes as the North American box office slumped
to its lowest level of the year.  New releases The
Back-up Plan and The Losers
generated unimpressive results allowing the five-week old 3D cartoon How
to Train Your Dragon to reclaim the number one spot thanks to
its continued durability.  For the first time all year the top ten films
failed to gross at least $90M.

After coming within a hair of nabbing the box office crown last weekend,
How To Train Your Dragon won a decisive
victory this time grossing $15.4M in its fifth weekend for another slim
decline of only 22%, according to final studio
figures.  The DreamWorks blockbuster has now amassed a fantastic $178.3M
and should bust through the $200M mark the same weekend as when Paramount
stablemate Iron Man 2 arrives
to kick off the summer movie season.  The Viking toon is still on course
to finish its run in the neighborhood of $225M which would be more than
five times its opening weekend take thanks to amazing legs.  Dragon's
drops to date have been 34%, 14%, 21%, and 22%. 

Fans didn't exactly turn out in large numbers for Jennifer Lopez who
returned to theaters with her first major wide release in five years.  Her
pregnancy comedy The Back-up Plan collected
$12.2M from a very wide 3,280 locations for a lackluster $3,720 average. 
Slammed by poor reviews, the PG-13 film about a woman who finds Mr. Right
after being impregnated artificially played mostly to adult women, and
failed to appeal to a broader audience.  Females made up 71% of the audience,
57% were over 30, and 21% were Latino, according to distributor CBS Films. 
This is only the company's second release following the disastrous Brendan
Fraser-Harrison Ford flop Extraordinary Measures
which debuted to a terrible $6M and $2,363 average in January. 

Lopez has generally been a reliable draw at the box office with her
films and the opening of Plan does
not necessarily mean she no longer has box office clout any more.  The generic
story, lack of additional starpower, and poor marks from critics all helped
to prevent an opening like those of her past films.  The last major Lopez
vehicle was 2005's Monster-in-Law which
bowed at number one with $23.1M in May, a month usually topped by big-budget
action films each weekend. 

Audiences made Date Night the number
three choice again this weekend as the Steve Carell-Tina Fey comedy slipped
just 37% to $10.5M. Fox has laughed up a solid $63.3M in 17 days and could
be headed for the $90M mark. 

Opening in fourth with weak results was the action film The
Losers with $9.4M from 2,936 locations for a poor $3,204 average. 
The Warner Bros. release featuring Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, and Jeffrey
Dean Morgan didn't have the starpower to pull in paying audiences and the
story involving a group of renegade ex-soldiers seeking revenge on a criminal
mastermind failed to spark any interest.  Reviews were mixed for the PG-13
pic. 

Kick-Ass stumbled in its second
weekend falling 53% to $9.3M giving the super hero flick $34.7M in ten
days.  Lionsgate should end up with roughly $55M from its much-buzzed-about
action film.  The 3D action pic Clash of the Titans
grossed $8.9M, off 42%, pushing the total for Warner Bros. up to $145.6M.
Sony's comedy remake Death at a Funeral
tumbled 51% in its second weekend to $8M. With $28.5M in ten days, the
Chris Rock-Martin Lawrence film should finish its run with $45-50M.

Disney's new underwater documentary Oceans
scored the best per-theater average of any film in wide release this weekend. 
The G-rated pic debuted in moderate national release with 1,206 locations
and grossed $6.1M for a $5,024 average.  Add in grosses from the Thursday
opening on Earth Day when it ranked number one in the marketplace and the
four-day cume stands at $8.5M. On a per-theater basis, the bow was almost
identical to the studio's doc from this same frame last year when Earth
bowed to $8.8M from a wider debut in 1,804 sites for a $4,892 average. 

The Mouse House rounded out the top ten with a pair of hits.  The Miley
Cyrus teen romance The Last Song dropped
37% to $3.8M for a $55.5M total to date.  Alice
in Wonderland, the biggest non-Pandora 3D movie of all-time,
fell 38% to $2.3M boosting the total to $327.5M.

The top ten films grossed $85.8M which was down 15% from last year when
Obsessed opened in the top spot with
$28.6M; but up 13% from 2008 when Baby Mama debuted
at number one with $17.4M.

Compared to projections, The Back-up Plan was
on target with my $13M forecast, but The Losers
debuted well below my $14M prediction.  Oceans
was close to my $5M projection. 

Get earlier box office updates and analysis by following BoxOfficeGuru.com
on Twitter. 

This column is updated three times each week:
Thursday
(upcoming weekend's summary), Sunday
(post-weekend analysis with estimates), and Monday
night (actuals).  Opinions expressed in this column are those solely of
the author.