"Cars" Clicks Down a Notch

Adam Sandler's High Concept movie pushes "Cars" into the Number Two position ($14,370,000 vs. $6,460,000)... and the John Lasseter film ends its reign at the top after two weekends. "Over the Hedge" moves out of the Top Ten after five weeks. (Click here for B.O. Mojo's complete Friday stats. More to follow further into the weekend.) Update: The weekend estimates confirm the Friday tally: "Cars" declines 33.2% to settle in behind Sandler's latest. Cars now totals almost $156,0000,000. "Over the Hedge" has gathered in $144,493,000. Upcoming summer animated releases: "Ant Bully," "Monster House," and "Barnyard." No doubt about it, 2006 will go down as a big year for animated features. Addendum: Kevin here to horn in on Steve's post and add a bit more info. I noted last weekend that the second weekend drop for Cars was the biggest of the recent Pixar films -- well, this third weekend shows Cars had the smallest percentage drop (assuming the estimates are about right). Cars is now tracking with Finding Nemo and ahead of Toy Story 2, though it's a little hard to compare because those latter films were both released in the holiday season and not the summer. Also take a look at the current domestic top films of 2006 -- fully animated films in 3 of the top 5 places. I think even if a few of the remaining summer animated films tank (which is very likely), this kind of success will keep the animation factories churning out films.