Cowboys and Aliens barely edges out Smurfs

You’d need a thin utility knife to cut the difference between the box office totals Cowboys and Aliens, and the Smurfs 3D movie. It was never supposed to be quite so close.

Cowboys and Aliens is the latest effort from the director of Iron Man and Iron Man 2, but without a Marvel superhero to power the box office, Han Solo and James Bond proved slightly less superpowerful. With a budget of $163 million, Cowboys and Aliens’ take was $36.4 million domestically with no foreign box office registering for the flick just yet. While it was barely good enough for first place, that placed the movie well behind where it needed to be to have the best chance to make their investment back prior to video release.

The Smurfs, however, overachieved against the action flick. The family-friendly movie boasted a budget that was lower by a third… around $110 million. And despite debuting on about 355 fewer screens, the Smurfs had a far better per-screen average, so drawing $35.6 million was a more impressive achievement. The Smurfs, more importantly, have done better since the weekend, giving them the advantage in current box office $51 million to Cowboys and Aliens’ $48 million.

Rom-com Crazy Stupid Love finished a distant fifth place with $19.1 million, but considering its much smaller, $50 million budget, it’s still in a good position to make investors’ money back.

Captain America: The First Avenger fared well against the still competition, drawing $25.5 million in its second week of release. To date, Captain America has earned $127 million domestically, and another $71.7 million overseas despite its American-centric, patriotic focus … good news for the future of the series.

Currently sitting at $199.2 million worldwide, the movie is now in the black against its $140 million production budget, making anything that happens from here on out gravy for Disney-owned Marvel Films.

Three weekends into its run, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 drew $21.9 million domestically and its global totals now stand at $328 million domestically and $713.2 million in foreign markets, for a total well over $1B in global box office.

But all bets are off this weekend as Rise of the Planet of the Apes debuts; it’s possible the last huge-event movie of the summer season and with 3,648 screens hosting, should live up to its promising ad campaign. I’m not saying there are no good releases remaining… but Rise is probably the last great one that could rank up there with Harry Potter in the summer box office totals.