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First Look: ‘Shrek’ falls short on fourth go-round while ‘MacGruber’ bombs

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‘Shrek’ may have overstayed his welcome on the big screen.

‘Shrek Forever After,’ the fourth and final installment in the most successful animated series of all time, sold $71.3 million worth of tickets in the U.S. and Canada this weekend, according to an estimate from distributor Paramount Pictures.

That’s a 41% drop from the $121.6-million debut of ‘Shrek the Third’ on the same weekend in 2007 and significantly below even the most conservative pre-release estimates for the new film’s opening weekend.

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The decline in revenue significantly understates the drop in attendance, however, as ‘Forever After’ is the first ‘Shrek’ movie to play in digital 3-D, which means the majority of tickets carried a surcharge of about $3 on top of normal price inflation over the last three years.

Still, ‘Shrek Forever After,’ which cost DreamWorks Animation about $165 million to produce, will probably hold on well in the coming weeks and have a relatively strong performance over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, as it will be the only family film and only 3-D film in theaters. Moviegoers who saw the new ‘Shrek’ movie gave it an average grade of A, according to market research firm CinemaScore, up from a B+ for the third installment, which means word-of-mouth should be very healthy.

But it’s unlikely to end up a blockbuster on the same scale as ‘Shrek the Third,’ which had a final domestic gross of $323 million, or 2004’s ‘Shrek 2,’ which finished its run with $422 million.

Overseas could be a different story. Though ‘Shrek Forever After’ won’t open in most major foreign countries until after the World Cup, the film debuted in Russia this weekend to a huge $20 million. That’s the most successful opening ever in the country, slightly ahead of last year’s ‘Avatar.’ If ‘Shrek Forever After’ ends up anywhere close to the nearly $500 million that its two predecessors grossed overseas, it will still be very profitable for DreamWorks.

‘MacGruber,’ a parody of the 1980s series ‘MacGyver,’ set a new low in the undistinguished commercial history of movies based on ‘Saturday Night Live’ skits. The inexpensive Rogue Pictures film, which was distributed by Universal Pictures, opened to a dismal $4.1 million.That’s the smallest opening ever for an ‘SNL’ movie in wide release, below even the opening of ‘The Blues Brothers’ in 1980 when ticket prices were a fraction of what they are today. It’s also the worst debut for any movie in wide release so far in 2010.

Ticket sales for ‘Robin Hood’ dropped a so-so 48% after the soft start for the big-budget adventure starring Russell Crowe, putting it at $18.7 million. The romantic ‘Letters to Juliet’ starring Amanda Seyfried held on well, however, falling only 33% to $9.1 million.

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Both movies came in behind ‘Iron Man 2,’ which saw ticket sales fall 49% on its third weekend to $26.6 million, bringing its total domestic gross so far to a very strong $251.3 million.

-- Ben Fritz

Related:

‘Movie Projector’ for ‘Shrek Forever After’

Times’ box office coverage

Times’ review of ‘Shrek Forever After’Times’ review of ‘MacGruber’

Top photo: A scene from ‘Shrek Forever After.’ Credit: DreamWorks Animation. Bottom photo, from left: Ryan Phillippe, Will Forte and Kristen Wiig in ‘MacGruber.’ Credit: Greg Peters / Rogue Pictures

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