Up trounced everyone at the box office this weekend with an excellent $68 million take. The rest of the field, however, was disappointing. Drag Me to Hell, despite good reviews, couldn’t get past $17 million, while Night at the Museum fell more than anticipated. Same goes for Star Trek and Terminator. Star Trek did become the first film of 2009 to top the $200 million mark.

Up – $68.2M – $68.2M
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian – $25.5M – $105M
Drag Me to Hell – $16.6M – $16.6M
Terminator Salvation – $16.1M – $90.7M
Star Trek – $12.8M – $210M
Angels & Demons – $11.2M – $105M
Dance Flick – $4.9M – $19.2M
X-Men Origins: Wolverine – $3.9M – $171M
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past – $1.91M – $50M
Obsessed – $665K – $67.5M

The “Sleeker, Faster Response” Theory: If the new “Trek” gives us the Enterprise equivalent of a Blu-Ray disk, then the ship on the original “Trek” looks like a Betamax tape. One fan theory is that the attack on the Kelvin forced the Federation to build sleeker, faster spacecraft in the movie’s new reality.

“Right,” agreed Abrams. “The idea of the story is that at the beginning of the film something happens that changes the course of history. They cross paths with this futuristic ship, and it changes everything that would’ve been the classic series ‘Trek’ fans are familiar with. … One could argue that, based on the readings they got from the [Romulan] ship that showed up, it inspired ideas and technology that wouldn’t have advanced otherwise.” Hence, the huge difference between the old Enterprise and his version. “On the one hand, you could answer the question by saying that history got a boost, an adjustment, from this moment at the beginning of the film,” he grinned. “And if you don’t want to answer the question, you could say it’s just a movie.” – from MTV

I remember we started working with Zachary [Quinto] first and he was terrific and it was clear that he was going to be incredibly affecting and effecting in the role and he was very, very talented and working really hard and we had about a week working with him and I thought “Holy shit, Chris better be good.” I knew he was great in the audition and he’s awesome, but it was a different thing, like “Wait a minute, Zachary is really good. Chris better be great!” Then Chris started working and he was awesome and I thought “Zach better up his game” and it was this fun thing were they were all so good that it was like watching great tennis players where you think “Oh my God, that was such an amazing serve, there’s no way that can be returned” and then you see an amazing return and you think “Oh my God, that’s impossible.”

That really, for me, was the key, which was “Are the characters working?” and “Are the actors doing their job?” and I’ve never been more grateful for a cast of actors than this cast. They not only had the burden of having to make a space adventure feel real and emotional and funny and scary and legitimate, but they had to do it in the shadow of these incredible actors playing iconic roles that were shoes that intellectually I realize how daunting it must have been, more in retrospect than anything do I sort of feel what that challenge was for them and I think that all of them did it not with fear or hesitation or self doubt, but they did it with fun exuberance.

They did it with this kind of excitement and that was a really wonderful thing to see. They were embracing these roles in the only way you can do it and that to me, every day on the set and seeing how wonderful the cast was and what a wonderful job they were doing, that was the thing for me that felt like “It’s going to work,” because I was never worried that the story wasn’t good. I think they wrote a great script. I was never worried about the visual effects or that the action sequences weren’t going to be good, because I knew we were working with amazing stunt people, I knew that ILM is the best in the business, so my insanely long answer is really just to say that the actors were the keys for me even remotely feeling like we had a shot, that what they were doing was so good.

- from AICN

As expected, Angels & Demons won this weekend’s box office, taking in $48 million – about what we’d anticipated. Star Trek did better than many anticipated, at $43 million (we’d predicted about $40). Wolverine’s $15 million take helped it clear $150 million, but it’s a long shot to top the $200 million mark. One interesting note is that Monsters vs. Aliens $3 million take this weekend puts it at $191 million, and it’ll be a up in the air if it makes $200, but we think it will. Next week sees the opening of two big pics – Terminator Salvation and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

Here’s this week’s top 10.

Angels & Demons – $48M – $48M
Star Trek – $43M – $148M
X-Men Origins: Wolverine – $14.8M – $151M
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past – $6.86M – $40.1M
Obsessed – $4.55M – $62.6M
17 Again – $3.4M – $58.4M
Monsters vs Aliens – $3M – $191M
The Soloist – $2.42M – $27.5M
Next Day Air – $2.28M – $7.65M
Earth – $1.68M – $29.1M

MTV got a chance to grill Star Trek director JJ Abrams about what we could expect in the inevitable sequel. Of course, screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have not yet started on the announced sequel, so anything at this point is just speculation. But Abrams admits that the alternative universe timeline allows them to deviate from Trek canon. When I polled the slashfilm followers on Twitter a week ago, the three most popular ideas were: The Original Crew vs. The Borg, the return of William Shatner and of course, KHANNNN!!!! The last two pose a big problem. Shatner’s Kirk died on in the climax of the 1994 film Star Trek: Generations. – From SlashFilm

Right about now in outer space, three men are crouched in a node of the International Space Station, watching J.J. Abrams’ reboot of “Star Trek” on a laptop. They chose the node, said NASA spokeswoman Nicole Cloutier, because it was “dark and quiet” and would be “a good spot” for three “Star Trek” fans to hunker down for the ultimate viewing experience. “They just ended their crew day,” said Ms. Cloutier, “so they’re watching it now, or just finishing it up. They can go all day without seeing each other, so this is a good chance to get together.” – from NYTimes

Angels & Demons is this week’s list of new films. Nothing else opens wide. Angels will rule the roost, unless Star Trek kicks ass in the repeat viewers category. The oft-delayed Brothers Bloom, which has a nice cast with Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo, gets a limited release, along with Jen Aniston’s Management.

Watch for Angels to take in around $50 million – the film has solid early reviews and the only new gig in town. Star Trek will come in second – around $40 million. Wolverine will be third, generating $10-15 million.

New this week:

Angels & Demons
This film a lackluster early trailer, but previews have given it decent reviews (certainly better than the Da Vinci Code). The action is picked up, and even the Vatican has deemed the film much-ado-about-nothing with regards to its treatment of the Catholic Church. The film takes place as a sequel to the Da Vinci Code, even though the original book came before it. Watch for good worldwide reception to the film as well.

JJ Abrams‘ Star Trek exceeded the Sunday morning predictions, grossing $3 million more than expected. The Mother’s Day numbers elevated the film’s opening weekend box office to $79.2 million. Vice-Chairman of Paramount Pictures Rob Moore says that “The spike over our initial estimates on Mother’s Day demonstrates that the combination of strong reviews and solid word-of-mouth contributed to better than anticipated attendance by families yesterday, confirming our belief that ‘Star Trek’ has a broad, multi-generational appeal.” Also, IMAX has checked in, announcing that Trek made $9.6 million worldwide in IMAX over opening weekend. Trek grossed $8.5 million from 138 IMAX theatres domestically, a per screen average of approximately $62,000 for the weekend, marking the highest grossing Friday, Saturday and Sunday ever for an IMAX opening. – From Slash Film

Paramount’s “Star Trek” has successfully beamed up, debuting to $76.5 million at the domestic box office, including $4 million in Thursday night runs. Overseas — where the sci-fi franchise has never played well –”Star Trek” likewise posted solid numbers, grossing $35.5 million from 5,000 locations in 54 markets for a worldwide bow of $106 million.

- from Variety

Thursday evening previews contributed $4 million to the total and midnight Thursday performances $3 million as the well-reviewed film re-invigorated the studio’s storied franchise with an opening smack in the middle of an unusually broad range of prerelease forecasts. Paramount execs had said they’d be pleased if “Trek” traveled anywhere north of $50 million during its first session. “Trek” made good use of positive word-of-mouth during the weekend to build on a core franchise fan base and tap into more youthful demos. Weekend grosses, fattened by outsized receipts in 138 Imax giant-screen venues, peaked with particularly robust Saturday night business. – from THR

The revamped “Star Trek,” which had never seen significant international traction in its 10 previous incarnations, scored a respectable $7,100 per-location average. Top “Trek” takes came from the U.K. with $8.8 million, Germany with $4.6 million, Australia with $3.4 million, France with $2.8 million, Russia with $2.3 million, South Korea with $2.2 million and Spain with $1.6 million. Paramount noted Sunday the “Trek” results came in 3% ahead of the 2005 re-invention of the Batman franchise, “Batman Begins,” which finished with a $167 million foreign cume. Par also pointed out that the new “Star Trek” is already 47% ahead of the final international cume of the previous franchise entry, “Star Trek: Nemesis.” – from Variety

Next week, director-producer extraordinaire J. J. Abrams (LOST, Cloverfield) re-starts one of the most beloved franchises in Hollywood history: Star Trek. What’s more, the eleventh feature film in the Star Trek universe is a reboot, not a sequel, which dares to revisit the youthful Starfleet Academy days of James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine) and his future Enterprise crew. While we won’t reveal plot spoilers here (suffice to say this Trek places our familiar officers in an alternate reality timeline), we thought we’d take a close look at the cast of Abrams’ Star Trek to see how closely they resemble their classic counterparts. See how the Enterprise crew measures up inside! – From Rotten Tomatoes