Star Trek Prospers at the Box Office

Star Trek prospered at the box office this weekend with an estimated intake of $72.5 million. The JJ Abrams reboot, which modernized the story of the USS Enterprise by bringing in a younger cast and telling the tale of the characters’ origins, proved to be just what the franchise needed, far surpassing the $43 million domestic gross of the last installment, 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis.

Last week’s box office winner, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, lost 68 percent percent of its audience, bringing in a distant $27 million. It was the least attended second week for a movie in the X-Men franchise, but its two-week total gross is at a strong $129.6 million. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past came in third place with $10.4 million, and Obsessed fell down a notch from last week, coming in fourth place with $6.6 million. 17 Again came in fifth with $4.4 million, bringing its four-week total to an estimated $54 million.

In new releases, Next Day Air, the Donald Faison/Mos Def drug comedy came in sixth place with $4 million at $1,138 theaters; Rudo y Cursi, the latest from Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, averaged $3,014 at 70 theaters for $211,000; and Little Ashes, about the young life and loves of Salvador Dali, starring newly-crowned Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson, nearly matched Wolverine‘s theater average with $6,417 at 12 theaters for a modest intake of $77,000.

Next week, the highly anticipated prequel to The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, with Tom Hanks, tries to angle out Star Trek for the top spot. Also opening is The Brothers Bloom, starring Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo as brothers trying to con the eccentric and rich Rachel Weisz out of her money, and Management, a quirky love story starring Steve Zahn and Jennifer Aniston.