Beyonce claims girls run the world, but this weekend it was all about the primates. “The Rise of the Planet of the Apes” topped the box office with a better-than-expected haul of $54 million. And it did it without any annoying 3D gimmicks. The reboot/prequel to the classic ape film was produced for $90 million and surprised industry experts with its robust opening weekend. In fact, the flick earned the fifth-best August opening ever. Not bad for the dog days of summer. With a strong A- CinemaScore grade, the film should hold up very well in the coming weeks.

After last week’s virtual tie at the box office, “The Smurfs“, this time around, beat “Cowboys & Aliens” handily. Despite awful reviews, the blue creatures and their New York adventure earned another $21 million while the western took in $15.8 million. The figures represent a 41% and 56.8% drop respectively.

Earning his second flop of the summer, Ryan Reynolds’ comedy only managed to garner $14 million for its first weekend receipts. Thankfully “The Change Up’s” other co-star, Jason Bateman, has a summer hit on his hands with “Horrible Bosses”. Rounding out the top five was “Captain America: The First Avenger” which earned another $13 million raising its total to $143 million. Check out the rest of the Top Ten below.

check out the rest of the top ten after the jump

Well, Captain America is off to a great start! With the estimated total for the weekend at $65.8 million, it is now the most successful superhero movie of the summer, beating Thor‘s $65.7 million debut record. Other superhero films have included X-Men: First Class at $55.1 million, while Green Lantern brought in $53.2 million. The film, starring the sexy Chris Evans, had a production budget of $140 million…so they’re well on their way to paying off their debt.

Also opening this weekend was Friends With Benefits, starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. Although not a blockbuster film, the film still did quite well, bringing in $18.5 million this weekend, which is the third spot. Back in January, fellow “friends with benefits” sex comedy “No Strings Attached” (obviously a comparable film) did have a stronger opening weekend that this one when it first hit theatres. I think there’s just so many good movies to choose from right now, making for a lot of competition! Sidenote: Speaking of JT, It’s recently been announced that Justin Timberlake is going to go on tour next year! Can’t wait to hear some of his new stuff.

Check out the insane amount of money Transformers and Harry Potter have brought in so far after the jump…

Another record setting weekend at the box office thanks to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. It all started on Friday, when the film brought in a record $92.1 million. Now that the Saturday is over, the weekend estimate for the film is over $168.5 million. This is the new record, which was previously held by The Dark Knight‘s opening weekend at $158.4 million – when you account for inflation, Harry Potter would actually be $173 million in comparison. After this weekend, the film now holds four records: largest midnight gross ($43.5 million), largest opening day ($92.1 million), largest opening weekend ($168.5 million) and largest IMAX opening ($15.5 million from 274 locations). I’d say the Potter franchise went out with band, don’t you think?

The other film that opened this weekend was Winnie The Pooh, which didn’t have that strong of an opening (probably because most people were at Potter). The film (which is the first traditional non-3D cartoon I’ve seen out in ages) brought in only $8 million this weekend, but experts feel that it should pick up because there is still a lot of online interest for the film.

Find out which film passed the $300 million mark after the jump…

Looks like the Box Office is “more than meets the eye” once again, with Transformers: Dark of the Moon taking the top spot for the second weekend in a row. Seriously, this film brought in another $47 million this weekend, bringing it’s total to over $261 million after only two weekends in theatres. Incredible! I have yet to see it, but have heard nothing but good things. (Sidenote: Last night, Tyrell and I decided to watch James Cameron’s Sanctum in our condo’s movie room instead. The film, which was based on a true story, was good but overall a little too slow for us. Still planning on seeing Transformers though! Have you guys seen it?

Horrible Bosses opened this weekend at a little over $28 million, which isn’t too shabby at all. We caught this film earlier this week at the prescreen and loved it. It was no “Bridesmaids,” but still throughly entertaining. My favorite was how dirty Jennifer Aniston‘s mouth was in the film – and how freaking hot she was! Rachel who?

Zookeeper also opened this weekend, taking the number three spot at $21 million. I have to say, that’s pretty impressive considering I’ve personally not seen much promo for this movie at all. With that said, there are some heavy hitters in the film which obviously drew people in. These familiar faces included Kevin James, Rosario Dawson, Cher, Sylvester Stallone, Adam Sandler, Ken Jeong, and more. Did you hit the theatres this weekend?

Find out which huge Box Office hit falls short of the top 10 this week…

Universal Studios is celebrating a big victory this weekend (besides the Fourth of July). The hilarious female driven comedy Bridesmaids has surpassed Sex & the City and become the top grossing female R-rated comedy ever. That’s an amazing feat for star Kirsten Wiig and producer Judd Apatow.

With this long weekend’s box office projections, Bridesmaids will domestically make an estimated $153.7 million. Sex & the City earned $152.6 million. And, it doesn’t look like Bridesmaids is giving an sign of slowing down.

Universal is also celebrating in the fact that this has now become the studios biggest romantic comedy success as well and the seventh most successful romantic comedy of all time. I know what you’re thinking… is Bridesmaids really a rom com? Well, Kristen Wiig’s character does get the boy in the end.

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*All box offices numbers are a projected estimate of long weekend totals

This long weekend, those involved with Transformers: Dark of the Moon can share in the fireworks celebrations with an insanely successful opening weekend! The movie opened mid-week on Wednesday in 4,013 locations and since then has already surpassed $160 million! That’s already more than Bridesmaids has done since it opened! This is now the third biggest movie opening of all time.

A few other new films opened this weekend with less than stellar results. A film starring Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks, “Larry Crowne,” you’d think would do well given their star power, but the film wasn’t even able to reach $20 million over the four day period it has been opened for. Another new film starring a former Disney Kid turned pop star did even worse than that. Find out what it was (since you probably didn’t watch it) and how the rest of the Top 10 films did below.

Top 10 movies at the Box Office after the jump…

I swear this is the year of the movie sequels/franchises. There seem to be several in theaters at any given time and they all seem to do so well. This weekend was no exception, the animated feature Cars 2 taking the top spot in its opening weekend. The film brought in $68 million, which was over double of what the second place movie brought in. The funny thing is that Cars 2 received the worst reviews of any Pixar film to date, yet it certainly still revved its engine at the box office this weekend.

In second place was the highly anticipated Bad Teacher film, starring Cameron Diaz, her ex Justin Timberlake, and many other familiar funny peeps. The film brought in $31 million, with 63% of the audience being female, and 57% of them were over 25. I have yet to see it, but definitely want to. That said, it’s not even close to being in the same league as Bridesmaids – one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen in my life.

There are four other sequels or franchise films that remained in the top 10 this weekend. Find out what they were and how they did below.

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With Ryan Reynolds playing the leading man, Green Lantern had a very successful opening at the box office this past weekend. The comic book hero brought just under $52.7 million, which is just a little less than what X-Men: First Class brought in just a few weeks ago. It will definitely be interesting to see if there will be a franchise that will come out it. Personally, I haven’t seen it – did any of you watch it? If so, what’d you think?

Also new this weekend was Jim Carrey in Mr. Popper’s Penguins. In the film, Carrey plays a businessman that inherits six penguins, and after he transforms his apartment into a winter wonderland, his career side starts to crumble. I don’t know why you’d want to watch this film unless you were 10 years old, but the film brought in $18.2 million for it’s opening weekend this weekend. Last weekend, Super 8 took the top spot in it’s opening weekend. This week, it dropped 40% to the number two spot. No other big films opened this weekend…so what else did everyone watch?

Find out how X-Men: First Class is doing and how much the hilarious Bridesmaids movie has brought in so far below.

Check out the Top 10 list after the jump…