Star Trek set its phasers to stun audiences this weekend and accomplished its mission to go where no Trek has gone before; the mainstream. The new Kirk and Spock easily flew the Enterprise to #1 banking an impressive $76.5M in its maiden voyage starting with Thursday evening showings, right on target with my $75M prediction. J.J. Abrams reboot took in $4M from Thursday night and $26.8M on Friday for a first day total of $30.8M. The Friday total matched the best opening weekend take of any Trek film prior to now, Star Trek: First Contact, which opened to $30.7M back in 1996. Trek saw a small dip on Saturday, collecting another $27.4M and then a substantial 33% drop on Sunday to $18.3M. Normally a drop of that magnitude could be cause for alarm, but when you consider that Sunday was Mother’s Day, a 33% drop is actually impressive. As everyone knows by now, the reviews have been through the roof for this latest installment of the long running sci-fi franchise and word of mouth has been just as good. Star Trek will continue to fly high over the next few weeks, despite upcoming competition from Angels and Demons, robot terminators and museums that come to life. Star Trek will drop no more than 50% during its second flight and maybe as little as 40%.

The only other new release of the weekend was comedy, Next Day Air, starring Mos Def and Donald Faison. Entering a crowded marketplace with the added baggage of bad reviews caused Air to stall on the runway, grossing a paltry $4M to land in 6^th place, close to my $2.5M forecast. Expect Next Day Air to fall out of the top ten next weekend and disappear from theatres shortly after.

Among holdovers, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, performed much like the last film in the X-Men franchise, tumbling 68% to slice another $27M out of the box office, very close to my forecast of a 66% drop. Wolverine should stabilize next week to a smaller drop in the 50% range and will be very lucky to make it to the $200M mark by the end of its run. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, after a disappointing opening weekend, held up impressively in its second frame, slipping only 32% to gross another $10.4M, slightly better than my $9.2M projection. With no new romantic comedies on the immediate horizon, Ghosts should continue to display legs and may find its way to about $60M. To see how the rest of my predictions fared, check out the chart below.