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MONDAY, MAY 28, 2012
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Tommy Lee Jones, left, and Will Smith star in a scene from ‘Men in Black 3.’ The sequel was the top film over the weekend, pushing aside Marvel’s ‘Avengers,’ which has been on top for three weekends.
‘Men in Black’ beat ‘Avengers’ By DAVID GERMAIN AP Movie Writer
LOS ANGELES — The suits have knocked off the superheroes at the box office. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones’ sequel “Men in Black 3” debuted as the No. 1 movie over Memorial Day weekend with $55 million domestically from Friday to Sunday. That bumps Disney’s “The Avengers” into second-place after three blockbuster weekends on top for the superhero sensation. “The Avengers” took in $37 million over the three days to push its domestic total to $514 million and become only the fourth movie ever to top half a billion dollars. Distributor Sony estimates that by the end of the four-day holiday weekend Monday, “Men in Black 3” will have pulled in $70 million domestically and $202 million worldwide. Universal’s “Battleship” was No. 3 in its second weekend with $10.8 million, raising its domestic earnings to $44.3 million. Paramount’s comedy “The Dictator” took in $9.6 million to finish fourth in its second weekend and lift its total to $41.5 million. The Warner Bros. horror tale “Chernobyl Diaries” opened at No. 5 with $8 million. “Men in Black 3” launched with a bit more cash than its two predecessors, which both had opening weekends of just above $50 million. But the original “Men in Black” debuted in 1997 and “Men in Black II” premiered in 2002, when admission prices were much lower than today’s. That means “Men in Black 3” sold fewer tickets than the previous installments. “Men in Black 3” reunites Smith’s Agent J and Jones’ Agent K as they battle a new alien menace that travels four decades back in time to do away with the younger Agent K (Josh Brolin). Among the movie’s box-office highlights overseas were debuts of $19.5 million in China, $18.9 million in Russia, $8.5 million in South Korea and $8 million in Japan.
Distributor Disney estimates that “The Avengers” will take in $47.1 million for the four-day holiday weekend, lifting the film’s domestic total to $523.8 million. That will put “The Avengers” within $10 million of “The Dark Knight,” the No. 3 movie on the all-time revenue chart with $533.3 million domestically. “The Avengers” will pass “The Dark Knight” in the coming week, leaving only two movies above it: “Avatar” at $760.5 million and “Titanic” at $658.5 million. With $26.3 million overseas, “The Avengers” raised its international total to $781.6 million, and its worldwide revenues to just under $1.3 billion. “The Avengers” will soon overtake “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” at $1.33 billion to become the No. 3 film on the global revenue list, again behind “Avatar” at $2.8 billion and “Titanic” at $2.2 billion. Overall domestic receipts for the four-day Memorial Day weekend will come in well behind last year’s record of $276 million. Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com, estimated that four-day revenues this time will total $195 million to $200 million, about 30 percent below Memorial Day weekend a year ago, when “The Hangover Part II” delivered a $100 million-plus debut. Hollywood remains on a record pace this year, with domestic revenue so far at $4.24 billion, up 12.5 percent over 2011 receipts, according to Hollywood.com. But “The Avengers” and now “Men in Black 3” have been the only notable successes for the summer season so far, with big releases such as “Dark Shadows” and “Battleship” fizzling on the domestic front. “We really need to get going if we don’t want to have play catch-up every weekend through the summer,” Dergarabedian said. “Some of these summer movies are just not doing the business people had hoped for in North America.”
BILL TARUTIS /FOR THE TIMES LEADER
I
talian American Veterans of Luzerne County Post 1 members Vice Commander Tom DeBortoli, left, and Past Commander John Hyder say the roll call of departed members assisted by bell ringer Part Commander Tony Deangelo during the annual Memorial Day services Sunday morning at the Independent Italian Cemetery in West Wyoming. Featured speaker was Joe Sincavage, commander of the Korean War Veterans of the Wyoming Valley. The bell was rung for departed ‘brothers and sisters.’
Golden Gate celebrated Landmark bridge’s 75th birthday marked
OBITUARIES
By JOHN S. MARSHALL Associated Press
S
AN FRANCISCO — Crowds gathered along San Francisco’s waterfront Sunday, while San Francisco Bay was crowded with pleasure boats, tug boats and other vessels as the city celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Ciprich, Mary Jane Del-Serra, Gary Gola, James Loftus, Dorothy McLarney, Sean O’Malia, John Pachick, Daniel Sr. Pascavage, Eleanor Sakowski, Therese Spagnola, Robert
Tens of thousands of people
were expected to flock to the area to enjoy a number of events taking place along a section of waterfront stretching from Fort Point south of the bridge to Pier 39 along The Embarcadero. At least several thousand people had gathered along the waterfront by Sunday afternoon, said Mary Currie, public affairs director for the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District. “Everyone is biking and walking and looks very happy,” she said. “We’re off to a great start.” San Francisco resident Daniel Sutphin and his family were among those in the crowd enjoying the day and the views of the bridge. “It’s such an iconic structure, depending on the day or the hour, it just looks like it changes continuously,” Sutphin said as he walked through the Fort Point area with his wife and their three young children. Since it opened in 1937, more than 2 billion vehicles have crossed the 1.7-mile-long bridge named after the Golden Gate Strait, the entrance of water to San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean, and championed by engineer Joseph Strauss in the 1920s. Because of the crowds expected and with no parking available near
AP PHOTOS
By FRANCES ROBLES McClatchy Newspapers
MIAMI — The fight between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin began with two people huffing and puffing in the dark, and then a brief exchange of bitter words. It wasn’t long before the two
were wrestling on the ground, and one of them let out such gutwrenching howls that several people in the neighborhood thought they might have come from dogs. Witnesses said the tussle grew louder as it made its way up a dark pathway, past several patios, from the concrete back on to grass. From there, witness accounts diverge. “The one guy was throwing blows MMA style,” a man called Witness No. 6 told Sanford Po-
the bridge, officials were urging people to take mass transit to the events. The California Highway Patrol was planning on shutting down traffic across the bridge from 9 p.m. through 10 p.m. for a monumental fireworks display set to take place over the bridge. In a stark contrast to the thousands of celebrants, members of the group the Bridge Rail Foundation, an organization dedicated to stopping suicide jumps from the bridge, erected a display of 1,558 pairs of shoes, representing the number of people who died in leaps from the bridge since it opened in 1937. “It’s a symbol of how deep and serious this problem has been,” said Paul Muller, a spokesman for the group. “We’re still losing 30 to 35 people a year off the bridge,” he said. Meanwhile, on the water, Golden Gate ferries were running again after a one-day strike disrupted service across San Francisco Bay on Saturday. Workers represented by the In-
lice, later explaining his reference to mixed martial arts. “The one getting beat up, I’m guessing he was yelling out help, because he didn’t want it to come to that point, and then it came to that point where he was on the concrete. I don’t know if you ever got hit on concrete, it hurts.” His recorded interview with Sanford Police was just two minutes long. But like several of the nearly two dozen witnesses interviewed by four different law en-
forcement agencies, Witness No. 6 was hampered by darkness and, the evidence suggests, influenced by news. A review of the testimony of witnesses to the Feb. 26 killing shows several of them modified their accounts or grew skeptical of their own recollections after weeks of news coverage. Several said they reshaped their stories because of what they learned on TV. In addition, some people heard a second shot that was never fired and saw shirts nobody
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Roberta McLauglin photographs an exhibit of shoes in remembrance of people who have jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge during a celebration of the bridge’s 75th anniversary on Sunday.
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The Phoenix fireboat sprays plumes of water as part of the Golden Gate Bridge celebration on Sunday in San Francisco.
landboatmen’s Union walked off the job on a day strike, forcing the cancellation of ferries operated by Golden Gate between Larkspur, Sausalito and San Francisco. The strike was called after nearly a year of negotiations over workloads and other matters, said Marina Secchitano, the union’s regional director.
Witnesses are contradicting each other in the Trayvon Martin case Review of the testimony of witnesses shows several of them modified their accounts.
HARRISBURG – No player matched all five winning numbers drawn in Sunday’s “Pennsylvania Cash 5” game, so the jackpot will be worth $1,175,000. Lottery officials said 151 players matched four numbers and won $281.50 each; 6,293 players matched three numbers and won $11 each; and 77,547 players matched two numbers and won $1 each. • No player matched all five winning numbers drawn in Saturday’s Powerball game, so the jackpot will be worth at least $146 million. The winning numbers drawn were: 13-14-41-49-59 Powerball: 14
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wore. Together, the testimony they offer is contradictory, and underscores the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. “Memory does not function like a videotape that records everything and can be replayed at will,” said Karen Newirth, an eyewitness identification litigation fellow at the Innocence Project, a national organization that works to exonerate innocent people. “People remember pieces of events, and then fill in the blanks with what makes sense.”
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