WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: 'Fast & Furious' Rides Again, 'Now You See Me' Outplays 'After Earth'

After a record-setting Memorial Day weekend, all of the key holdovers fell over 50 percent over the weekend. Despite a hefty 64 percent drop, Fast & Furious 6 rode to the top spot once again for the second weekend in a row.

The real upset of the weekend was Now You See Me outperforming its new release competition After Earth. With household names like Will Smith and M. Night Shyamalan attached to the sci-fi survival flick, After Earth was a shoe-in for the runner-up spot. After a string of panned releases including The Happening and The Last Airbender, M. Night Shyamalan certainly has his detractors, many of whom seemed to have abandoned the director.

Other May holdovers, Star Trek Into Darkness and Epic continued to battle it out for the final two spots of this weekend's Top 5. Comedy sequel The Hangover Part III quickly plummeted down the chart in its second week, sending the Wolfpack out with a whimper. 
  

Third 'MIB' Outing Ends Series on Weakest Note

After a decade-long hiatus, the MIB franchise goes in a brand new direction - back in time.

Men in Black 3 was simply doomed from the start, desperately attempting to reacquaint moviegoers (or more-so subject moviegoers) to what was already an outdated and lifeless franchise. Times have certainly changed since the late 90s as has the quality of cinematic competition. Will Smith just doesn’t have the star power that he had a decade ago with his trio of revolving summer blockbusters: Independence Day, Men in Black, and Wild Wild West.  

And Tommy Lee Jones is no better off, straying from his slew of Oscar-bait performances for the sole purpose of revisiting campy nostalgia. Back as MIB Agents J and K, Smith and Jones once again don their signature black suits and Ray-Bans ready to take down intergalactic criminal, Boris the Animal (Jermaine Clement) hell bent on altering the space time continuum. So far, the plot doesn’t sound too bad, a bit derivative, but surely not dreadful. After all, Back to the Future and Austin Powers are deep in the time-travel genre and look how it enhanced those franchises.