In what will probably be described as a head scratcher in the future, X-Men fought a close battle with Super 8 but managed to pull away slightly on Saturday/Sunday to claim #1 in admissions for the weekend. X-Men winning in admissions was a surprise in its own right but what separates this weekend from any other week is that X-Men may have to settle for #2 in gross when the actuals arrive. Normally, when such a thing occurs, the one on top usually is the victor in gross but since Super 8 is being shown in IMAX and with some unmonitored theater chains not being included in admissions, there can be a big change between admissions and gross.

All in all though, X-Men only fell 54% from last week's inflated holiday opening. That trumps both The Last Stand's and Wolverine's drops and is now on course to pass The Last Stand to become the highest grossing movie in the series. WOM has been spreading like wildfire and should it have another good hold next week, it will pass 3m.

After a poor opening day for Super 8, it really jumped as the weekend progressed. X-Men did pull away but Super 8 remained very competitive with only a 3,000 gap on Saturday and a 4,000 gap on Sunday. The bigger gap between them may signal that Super 8 won't have the legs that X-Men has but it will close with a respectable total.

Hangover 2 had the best drop of the top 5 as it only fell 40%. This is a shocking result since Hangover 2 was heavily inflated last Thursday and had last Sunday to cushion its opening weekend. 1.3m looks to be a lock and with another good hold next weekend, that may be bumped up to 1.5m.

Pirates 4 gave a surprising performance even with the loss of IMAX and a holiday-fueled weekend the weekend before. It only fell 53% for the weekend and dropped an even better 50% on both Saturday/Sunday. It may be able to get to 5.7m with a shot at 5.8m but it'll be hard pressed to make it to 6m given Green Lantern and a whole slew of films come out next weekend then the Chinese films all come out to play the weekend after and Transformers 3 takes over after that.

Microsex Office lost out to Pirates in admissions but its weekend has been bolstered by the unmonitored Newport Circuit theaters. When Thursday's actuals came out, Microsex Office came in with $10,000 more than Pirates but only had a less-than 500 admissions gap between the two. If the trend continues, Microsex Office will end up beating Pirates in gross even though Pirates' admission prices are 40% higher than Microsex.

Stay tuned to http://www.worldofkj.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=58584&start=175 for actuals!