Despite facing some stiff competitors this weekend, The Hunger Games remained in the top spot.

With another $33.5 million, The Hunger Games won its third consecutive weekend at the box office and it saw it surpass $300 million in domestic box office.  With its international take, the film now has a worldwide gross of $459.9 million.

Coming in second was American Reunion, the latest entry in the American Pie series.  It opened with $21.5 million, one of the weakest openings yet in the series.  I personally got tired of the franchise after the second film, so not sure why they’ve kept going with it.

Third place went to the 3D re-release of Titanic, which many thought would take the top spot.  It brought in $17.35 million, and in total has so far taken in $25 million.  The 3D conversion is said to have cost $18 million, so we’ll see if the project ended up being a good idea or not.

Wrath of the Titans slid 55.1% to $15 million and is looking to pretty much go down in the books as a flop as it had a $150 million budget.  With only $59 million in domestic box office after two weekends, things are definitely not going well.

Coming in fifth was Mirror, Mirror with a 39% decline to $11 million.  While it’s still not a success, that’s a healthy hold for a second weekend.

Surprisingly 21 Jump Street was in sixth with $10 million.  This really is looking like it’s turning into a surprise success.  What’s not a surprise success?  John Carter landed in ninth place with $820,000.

Next weekend is looking good for The Hunger Games again as the big releases are Lockout, The Cabin in the Woods and The Three Stooges. None of these three films look set for successful launches.

Raise your hand if you’re shocked that The Hunger Games won its second weekend at the box office. Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Despite slipping 59.9% from its opening weekend, The Hunger Games still took in a large haul at the box office with $61.1 million.  This ranks as the seventh best second weekend for a film ever and brings its domestic gross up to $251 million. Including its overseas numbers, the first film in the series has now brought in $364,933,000 worldwide.

Far more lackluster this weekend was Wrath of the Titans.  The sequel to the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans brought in $34.2 million in its opening weekend compared to the previous film doing $63.8 million in the same time span.  And this one cost $150 million to make compared to $125 million last time around.  Not good.

Opening in third place was the Snow White comedy Mirror, Mirror, which didn’t light the place up with a ho-hum $19 million.

Holding on in fourth place is 21 Jump Street which is doing better than pretty much anyone expected.  It fell 26.7% this weekend to bring in another $15 million.  It has now passed $93 million domestic and should pass $100 million by next weekend at the latest.  For a $45 million gamble, it looks to be paying off.

The Lorax came in fifth with $8 million, still hanging in there despite some fairly harsh reviews.

And where was John Carter?  With $2 million it was able to land in sixth place.  It’s now done $66.2 million domestic, but $188.3 million internationally for a worldwide total of $254,510,000. With a $250 million dollar budget, an estimated $100 million in marketing and then splitting revenues with exhibiters and such, Disney has announced they will put a $200 million dollar loss on paper for this film.

The only big release next week is the 3D version of Titanic. It’ll be interesting to see how it does this time around and if it’ll be able to knock The Hunger Games out of the number one spot.

The only thing shocking about this weekend at the box office was that the early estimates were low.

To no one’s surprise, The Hunger Games took the top spot at the box office.  After it’s success on Friday we all know it was coming, it was just a question of what the final number would be.  It came in with $155 million for the weekend, making it the third largest opening weekend ever, and just $3 million shy of second place holder, The Dark Knight.  It was the biggest opening weekend ever for a non-sequel, and that is saying a lot actually.  Internationally the film brought in $59.25 million in only one day of screenings making the worldwide gross for the first three days $214.25 million.  Expect to see just about every young adult novel ever turned into a movie soon.

Coming in second was the surprisingly successful 21 Jump Street which slid a very respectable 41.3% from last weekend to bring in $21.3 million.  It’s domestic gross is now over $71 million, with an additional $16 million from foreign markets.

The Lorax landed in third place with another $13.1 million. This film is holding on surprisingly well considering early reviews weren’t the best.

Languishing in fourth place was Disney’s newest disaster, John Carter. The first of a proposed series of films slipped another dismal 63.1% this weekend to bring in an anemic $5 million. Domestic gross now stands at $62.3 million off of a $250 million budget. The only saving grace for this movie is the foreign markets seem to like it more with $172.1 million coming in from overseas thus far. When you factor in the higher expenses of overseas distribution, however, things are still not good.

Act of Valor made its way back into the top five this week, but with only $2 million in revenue.

Next weeks big releases are Mirror, Mirror and Wrath of the Titans.  While I think Wrath will open strong, I’m going to call it right now that The Hunger Games will win its second weekend with ease.  It’s going to take a 50 to 55% hit from this weekend for sure, but a $70 to $75 million weekend is going to be hard to compete with.  We’ll just have to see what happens.

Apparently some big screen remakes of old TV shows can actually work.

In a rather larger surprise, 21 Jump Street not only did well at the box office this weekend taking in $35 million, but it also fared well with the critics. Who knew?  With a budget of $42 million, which seems a bit high for this type of film, it looks set to get into the black without much trouble.

The Lorax slipped another 41.3% to being in $22.8 million, bringing its domestic total to $158.4 million. The film has done so well that there is talk of the same team next working on an animated adaption of The Cat in the Hat.

John Carter slipped 55.2% which normally wouldn’t be that bad for a second weekend, but when your first weekend was pretty bad, and you had a $250 million budget, you know it’s making some Disney execs sweat.  The film brought in $13.5 million this weekend to make its domestic total $53.1 million.  Overseas the film is doing a bit better and brought in a total of $126.1 million thus far.

Project X keeps chugging along and brought in just over $4 million this weekend to bring its domestic total up to $48.1 million.

Rounding out the top five was A Thousand Words which brought in $3.75 million.

Next weeks sees the release of the highly anticipated The Hunger Games at a whopping 4,000 screens across the United States.

And after only four weeks of release, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance didn’t crack into the top 49 movies, which makes me wonder if it has already been pulled from theaters.

That thud you heard this weekend was John Carter slamming into The Lorax and falling to the ground.

Slipping a respectable 44.1%, The Lorax held on to the number one spot for a second weekend with $39.1 million.  That brings its domestic total to $121.95 million off of a $70 million budget.

The big news of the weekend, however, was Disney’s John Carter landed with a huge thud in second place with $30.6 million off of a $250 million budget.  It has done $70.6 million overseas for a worldwide total of $101.2 million.  It’s going to have a heck of a time recouping its budget, and I will say again that I think this film has been horribly mis-marketed.  For whatever reason Disney opted to just go with “John Carter” as the title as opposed to stressing the Mars aspect of the series, something that has been attached to the books since day one.  Whatever their reasoning, I’m thinking we won’t see be a sequel.

Project X slipped to third place, losing 45.1% to come in with $11.55 million.  I finally figured out which movie this is … good marketing, folks.

Horror film Silent House opened in fourth place with just a hair over $7 million.

Slipping to fifth place was Act of Valor, the film filled with real life SEAL team members.

The only major release next week is the abysmal looking 21 Jump Street, so don’t expect to see the top five changing much next week.  It will, however, be interesting to see what happens with John Carter.

21 Jump Street was always an idiotic concept for a TV show, but the series lingers on people’s memories because it ended up launching the career of some unknown actor named Johnny Depp.

Comedic actor Jonah Hill picked up the rights to the television series and while it wasn’t clear if he was going serious with the project or not, and … no, he isn’t.  Although Depp will have a cameo somewhere in the film, this looks like it will be nothing but being close to a parody fo the original TV series, which few people remember, and it will just turn into another vehicle for Hill.

You can see the red band trailer below (meaning it isn’t safe for work) and judge for yourself, but this looks just about as unentertaining as possible.