UPDATE: The revised Sunday numbers are starting to favor The Hangover.  That’s good news for anyone trying to get an R-rated comedy made.

Up killed it again this week, narrowly outearning The Hangover ($44.2 mil to $43.3) and becoming the first two-week number one of 2009 (though these are still “estimated” numbers – The Hangover may still be number one when “actual” numbers are released tomorrow).   Up fell just 35% in its second week.  Oh, and expect to see a lot more Zach Galifianakis.

Land of the Lost earned almost $20 mil for third place, though people are already calling it the “first bomb of summer.”  Elsewhere, Sam Mendes/Dave Eggers/Vendela Vida’s Away We Go made $35,815 per theater in limited release, probably all from semi-employed liberal arts majors.

And finally, Angels & Demons added $6.5 mil domestically, but the big story is that it surpassed $409 million worldwide, the highest grossing film of 2009.  So next time some foreigner tries to give you crap about Americans being dumb, poke your finger in his chest and drunkenly slur something about how it’s his fault Tom Hanks turned into Nic Cage.  Full top 10 after the jump.

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Pixar kept it real yet again over the weekend, with Up taking $68.2 million, Pixar’s third biggest opening ever (behind The Incredibles and Finding Nemo) and the fourth biggest opening of ’09 (behind Star Trek, Wolverine, and 4 Fast 4 Fourious).

Sam Raimi’s similarly well-reviewed Drag Me to Hell earned $16.6 mil and landed in number three (behind Night at the Museum 2) – solid business unless you consider that it was $5 million less than The Strangers made on the same weekend last year. Of course, The Strangers, who could forget The Strangers.  Who the f*ck was in that again?

Terminator Salvation is now down $14 million from Terminator 3: That One with the Chick.  Ouch.  Don’t get me wrong, TermSalv was sucky, but it wasn’t that sucky.  The numbers for Angels & Demons were also way off the Da Vinci Code, so hopefully we can expect Tom Hanks to take off his Nic Cage wig (and forehead) any day now and get back to being a respected actor again.  A freakishly creaseless forehead is the first segno of a career on decline.  See also: Cage, Bob Thornton. (full top 10 after the jump)

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(Hanks visits the place where they burned his old forehead)

As expected, Angels & Demons won the box office over the weekend, though its $48 million take was slightly below studio expectations, and well below the $77.1 million debut of The Da Vinci Code.  All in all it did okay, was mediocre not great, and will probably be forgotten by next weekend.  It’s basically the Olive Garden of movie franchises. Elsewhere, Star Trek was only down 46% off its opening weekend – a small drop, especially when you consider Wolverine was down 68% in its second weekend.  Trek‘s total take now stands at $147.6 million to Wolverine‘s $151.1 (and closing fast, I imagine).

The weekend boasted only two other high profile pics, both in limited release. Jennifer Aniston’s “Management” got a pink slip from moviegoers, grossing just $378,420 from 212 screens for a measly per-screen average of $1,785. Meanwhile, the caper comedy “The Brothers Bloom” was a bright spot on the specialty side, ringing up $82,000 from four theaters for a $20,500 per-theater haul. [CNN]

Now all that’s left to figure out is who the hell keeps seeing Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.

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Opening this week:

Angels & Demons – Hold onto your seats, Tom Hanks is going to tell you about the Illuminati.  And he’s going to look really serious.  “We’re going to go on a car chase!  But wait, I have to tell you about the history of the Vatican!”  I’d rather watch Dan Brown try to pick up Stephenie Meyer at a singles bar.  Somebody get on that.

The Brothers Bloom – Rian Johnson’s tale about a pair of con artist brothers looks hopelessly twee, but it does have a kitten on a roller skate.  Your call, bro.

_{Inside this box is a tube of freakishly creaseless forehead creme. I stole it from Nic Cage while he was doing Tai Chi.}

The problem with Da Vinci Code/Angels & Demons is that every five minutes, one of the characters pauses to recite the Wikipedia summary of some little-known ancient or scientific phenomenon.  It’s like they were trying to figure out how to work that stuff into the script but were short on time, so they just decided to have the characters talk about it while acting super serious.  “But you don’t mean… antimatter!”  “Yes, antimatter.  First discovered in 1955 by German radiologist….”

Anyway, they just released this “Hypertrailer,” (watch it below) which is kind of like pop-up video, where every few seconds a character will be highlighted and you can click through to see more videos about that character or plot point.  It’s a great idea, because what these movies really needed was more backstory.
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