North American box office: ‘Bruno’ gewinnt

Bruno came in a little over Sunday estimates, but still far under pre-weekend prognostications -- which had figured an opening in the $40-million range -- to claim a dubious prize: a front-row seat on the cooling of the box office after the hot hot hot winter of 2009. According to Box Office Mojo, this past weekend “was the least attended for the timeframe in 17 years and down five percent from last year.” What’s more:

Breaking the weekend gross down, Bruno had one of the steepest Friday-to-Saturday drops on record, slipping 39 percent from $14.4 million on Friday to $8.8 million on Saturday. For the most part, movies with such Saturday slides do not hold up well in the long run, rendering Bruno's chances

See also: the Wrap article I referenced earlier today, which mentions Bruno as a test case for the contention that Twitter-driven word of mouth is killing movies audiences don’t like.

Meanwhile, Transformers surged past $300 million over the previous week and will reach $350 million this coming weekend, Up is within spitting distance of $275 million, Star Trek passed $250 million, The Hangover will pass $225 million next weekend, and Ice Age 3 and The Proposal both rushed past $100 million. Not so bad, for some movies, anyway.

Bad news for I Love You, Beth Cooper, though: it debuted way down at No. 7, taking in only $4.9 million. It’ll be on DVD before summer is over, I bet.

On a per-screen basis, Bruno was nowhere near the top -- its $11,110 at each of 2,756 venues was only No. 4 in this ranking -- but it’s still the best, by far, of the wide releases; Ice Age 3 was next, at No. 9, with $6,730 at each of 4,102 locations. The top movies, per-screen, of the weekend:

Humpday: $14,369 (2 screens)
The Beaches of Agnes: $13,584 (1 screen)
Space Station 3D IMAX: $11,824 (6 screens)
Bruno
The Hurt Locker: $10,686 (60 screens)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is already breaking records, so next weekend’s report should be fun...

[numbers via Box Office Mojo]