Superbad took top honors at the weekend box office, pulling in an estimated $31.2 million. That’s better than the $30.6 million opening numbers for Judd Apatow’s other summer sex comedy hit Knocked Up’s opening. Knocked Up looks likely to finish up with around $150 million.
According to the L.A. Times, predictions for a $4 billion dollar summer look increasingly likely to come true. The surprising performance of July and August films in addition to the expected box office haul in May have pushed receipts to $3.83 billion – certainly within striking distance of 2004’s record $3.95 billion.
Ticket price increases account for some of the gains:
Attendance is the strongest in three years but running behind the 2002-2004 period.
This summer will end up with about 600 million tickets sold, Media by Numbers projects, well shy of the record 650 million from summer 2002. That year the original “Spider-Man” and “Star Wars: Episode II” led the way.
Box office was up 17.3% this weekend over the same period last year, the sixth straight weekend box office has exceeded the previous year.