In nine weekends of release, The Hangover has finished in second place seven times in the Box Office Power Rankings. This past weekend, The Hangover passed Star Trek’s $254 million – which means it’s playing with the big boys.
It will gross less domestically than Transformers, Up, and Harry Potter, and its reviews were not as strong as Up, Potter, Trek, or Drag Me to Hell. But it’s the movie of the summer because it’s had great legs over a long period of time.
In their ninth weekends, Up and Star Trek were out of the box-office top 10. The Hangover was in eighth place with $5.2 million.
This past weekend, its third, Harry Potter grossed $17.9 million. The Hangover in its third: $26.8 million.
Compare The Hangover hanging around to the moment of Brüno, whose buzz lasted weeks longer than the post-release cultural conversation.
As for Harry Potter, it’s telling that with relatively weak late-summer competition, the boy wizard only managed a tie for first in his third weekend. The movie will likely end up the second-highest-grossing Potter flick (behind Sorcerer’s Stone), but I don’t sense much enthusiasm.
| Box Office Power Rankings: July 10-12, 2009 | |||||||
| Box Office Ranks | Critics’ Ranks | ||||||
| Rank | Movie | Last Week | Gross | Per Theater | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | Total |
| 1 | Bruno | – | 10 ($30.6M) | 10 ($11.1K) | 8 (68) | 6 (54) | 34 |
| 2 | Public Enemies | 1 | 7 ($13.8M) | 7 ($4.1K) | 7 (67) | 8 (70) | 29 |
| 3 | The Hangover | 2 | 5 ($9.9M) | 5 ($3.3K) | 9 (79) | 9 (73) | 28 |
| 4 | Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs | 2 | 9 ($27.6M) | 9 ($6.7K) | 4 (45) | 4 (50) | 26 |
| 4 | Up | 2 | 3 ($4.7M) | 3 ($2.1K) | 10 (97) | 10 (88) | 26 |
| 6 | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | 6 | 8 ($24.2M) | 8 ($5.6K) | 2 (20) | 2 (35) | 20 |
| 7 | The Proposal | 5 | 6 ($10.6M) | 6 ($3.4K) | 3 (44) | 3 (48) | 18 |
| 8 | The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 | 7 | 1 ($1.5M) | 1 ($1.4K) | 6 (52) | 7 (55) | 15 |
| 9 | My Sister’s Keeper | 8 | 2 ($4.3M) | 2 ($1.8K) | 5 (47) | 5 (51) | 14 |
| 10 | I Love You, Beth Cooper | – | 4 ($4.9M) | 4 ($2.6K) | 1 (14) | 1 (32) | 10 |
| Box Office Power Rankings: July 17-19, 2009 | |||||||
| Box Office Ranks | Critics’ Ranks | ||||||
| Rank | Movie | Last Week | Gross | Per Theater | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | Total |
| 1 | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince | – | 10 ($77.8M) | 10 ($18K) | 9 (83) | 9 (78) | 38 |
| 2 | The Hangover | 3 | 5 ($8.2M) | 7 ($3.1K) | 8 (79) | 8 (73) | 28 |
| 3 | Bruno | 1 | 7 ($8.3M) | 6 ($3K) | 7 (68) | 6 (54) | 26 |
| 3 | Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs | 4 | 9 ($17.6M) | 9 ($4.6K) | 4 (45) | 4 (50) | 26 |
| 3 | Up | 4 | 3 ($3.2M) | 3 ($1.9K) | 10 (97) | 10 (88) | 26 |
| 6 | Public Enemies | 2 | 4 ($7.7M) | 4 ($2.5K) | 6 (67) | 7 (70) | 21 |
| 7 | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | 6 | 8 ($13.7M) | 8 ($3.5K) | 2 (20) | 2 (35) | 20 |
| 8 | The Proposal | 7 | 6 ($8.3M) | 5 ($2.7K) | 3 (44) | 3 (48) | 17 |
| 9 | My Sister’s Keeper | 9 | 2 ($2.8M) | 1 ($1.4K) | 5 (47) | 5 (51) | 13 |
| 10 | I Love You, Beth Cooper | 10 | 1 ($2.8M) | 2 ($1.5K) | 1 (14) | 1 (32) | 5 |
| Box Office Power Rankings: July 24-26, 2009 | |||||||
| Box Office Ranks | Critics’ Ranks | ||||||
| Rank | Movie | Last Week | Gross | Per Theater | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | Total |
| 1 | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince | 1 | 9 ($29.5M) | 8 ($6.8K) | 10 (83) | 10 (78) | 37 |
| 2 | The Hangover | 2 | 4 ($6.5M) | 6 ($2.8K) | 9 (79) | 9 (73) | 28 |
| 3 | G-Force | – | 10 ($31.7M) | 9 ($8.6K) | 3 (26) | 4 (41) | 26 |
| 4 | Orphan | – | 7 ($12.9M) | 7 ($4.7K) | 6 (45) | 4 (41) | |
| 5 | Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs | 3 | 6 ($8.4M) | 5 ($2.5K) | 6 (45) | 6 (50) | 23 |
| 6 | The Ugly Truth | – | 8 ($27.6M) | 10 ($9.6K) | 1 (14) | 1 (27) | 20 |
| 7 | Public Enemies | 6 | 2 ($4.4M) | 2 ($1.9K) | 7 (67) | 8 (70) | 19 |
| 8 | Bruno | 3 | 1 ($2.8M) | 1 ($1.5K) | 8 (68) | 7 (54) | 17 |
| 9 | The Proposal | 8 | 3 ($6.4M) | 3 ($2.3K) | 4 (44) | 5 (48) | 15 |
| 10 | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | 7 | 5 ($8.1M) | 4 ($2.5K) | 2 (20) | 2 (35) | 13 |
| Box Office Power Rankings: July 31-August 2, 2009 | |||||||
| Box Office Ranks | Critics’ Ranks | ||||||
| Rank | Movie | Last Week | Gross | Per Theater | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | Total |
| 1 | Funny People | – | 10 ($22.7M) | 10 ($7.5K) | 8 (65) | 8 (60) | 36 |
| 1 | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince | 1 | 9 ($17.9M) | 7 ($4.1K) | 10 (83) | 10 (78) | 36 |
| 3 | G-Force | 3 | 8 ($17.5M) | 9 ($4.7K) | 4 (26) | 4 (41) | 25 |
| 3 | The Hangover | 2 | 3 ($5.2M) | 4 ($2.5K) | 9 (79) | 9 (73) | 25 |
| 5 | Orphan | 4 | 5 ($7.5M) | 6 ($2.7K) | 7 (45) | 4 (41) | 22 |
| 6 | Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs | 5 | 4 ($5.5M) | 2 ($2K) | 7 (45) | 7 (50) | 20 |
| 6 | Aliens in the Attic | – | 6 ($8M) | 5 ($2.6K) | 4 (26) | 5 (42) | 20 |
| 8 | The Ugly Truth | 6 | 7 ($13.2M) | 8 ($4.6K) | 1 (14) | 1 (27) | 17 |
| 9 | The Proposal | 9 | 2 ($4.9M) | 3 ($2K) | 5 (44) | 6 (48) | 16 |
| 10 | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | 10 | 1 ($4.7M) | 1 ($1.8K) | 2 (20) | 2 (35) | 6 |
Methodology
Culture Snob’s Box Office Power Rankings balance box office and critical reception to create a better measure of a movie’s overall performance against its peers than gross receipts alone.
The weekly rankings cover the 10 top-grossing movies in the United States for the previous weekend. We assign equal weight to box office and critical opinion, with each having two components. The measures are: box-office gross, per-theater average, Rotten Tomatoes score, and Metacritic score.
Why those four? Box-office gross basically measures the number of people who saw a movie in a given weekend. Per-theater average corrects for blockbuster-wannabes that flood the market with prints, and gives limited-release movies a fighting chance. Rotten Tomatoes measures critical opinion in a binary way. And Metacritic gives a better sense of critics’ enthusiasm (or bile) for a movie.
For each of the four measures, the movies are ranked and assigned points (10 for the best performer, one for the worst). Finally, those points are added up, with a maximum score of 40 and a minimum score of four.
