Weekend Box Office: 'Cars 2' Races to the Top, 'Bad Teacher' Not So Bad After All

The soft opening of "Green Lantern" last weekend made for a slow week at the box office, but earnings bounced back in a big way this weekend thanks to the surprising performances of two new releases.

"Cars 2" took the top spot with an impressive $68 million. There was reason to worry going into the weekend, as reviews of the Pixar sequel were less than stellar: the movie only managed a 34% on Rottentomatoes. Kids don't much care about ratings, though, and they do care about characters that they're already familiar with. So, even though this may be Pixar's first ratings failure, the earnings will remain strong. Oh, and the merchandise sales will be just fine as well.

"Bad Teacher," being an R-rated comedy with a female lead, was only expected to bring in about $20 million in its first weekend. The movie smashed those expectations, however, and soared to an opening of $31 million instead. About two-thirds of the audience for "Bad Teacher" was female, and considering its success and the huge success of "Bridesmaids," there's no doubt that the box office landscape will be shifting in the favor of women.

"Green Lantern" dropped about 65% in its second weekend, a disastrous result considering its opening weekend was soft to begin with. The movie earned only $18.3 million domestically and performed equally poorly overseas. I'm as disappointed as anyone to see a great superhero like "Green Lantern" end up in a poorly-performing movie, but let this be a lesson to movie studios: you can't just spit out a mindless film with a lot of special effects and expect to do well. The box office is changing. Here's hoping that DC takes a tip from Marvel, or takes a closer look at what made "The Dark Knight" so great and attempt to bring that magic to their other superhero films.

Sci-fi drama "Super 8" stayed strong for yet another weekend and drew another $12.1 million. That brings the cumulative total to $95.1 million domestically, meaning that "Super 8" should pass the $100M mark with ease next weekend. Considering the budget reported by the studio is about $50 million, that's a solid performance for a completely original movie (i.e. not a sequel and not an adaptation from another source).

"Mr. Popper's Penguins" did surprisingly well over the weekend too, despite a soft opening last weekend. The movie held strong with a drop of only 44%, bringing in about $10.3 million for a cume of $39.4M. It's especially surprising considering the movie was competing with the juggernaut "Cars 2" for young audiences. Maybe kids were dragging their poor parents into double-headers?

This coming weekend brings the opening of "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," so earnings should remain strong. It will be interesting to see if the failing 3D market gets a boost from the flick, which has director Michael Bay touting the advantages of 3D as much as he is promoting the movie.

1. "Cars 2" - $68 million
2. "Bad Teacher" - $31 million
3. "Green Lantern" - $18.3 million
4. "Super 8" - $12.1 million
5. "Mr. Popper's Penguins" - $10.3 million