''American Wedding'' takes the cake at the box office

Who doesn’t love a wedding in the summer? Crude humor fans couldn’t resist “American Wedding” this weekend, as it topped the box office with $34.3 million, according to studio estimates.

As expected, the third film in the “American Pie” series didn’t perform as well as “American Pie 2,” which premiered with $45.1 million in 2001. But it was still a respectable turnout for “Wedding,” which will likely conclude the successful teen franchise.

Meanwhile, another film franchise is going strong as “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over” slipped a moderate 40 percent in its second weekend to $20.1 million. After 10 days, last week’s surprise No. 1 has grossed $69.1 million. And “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” held on even better, slipping only 17 percent to $19.1 million and bringing its four-week total to an incredible $209.8 million. That makes “Pirates” the fifth film of the year to cross $200 million, following “X2: X-Men United,” “The Matrix Reloaded,” “Bruce Almighty,” and “Finding Nemo,” all four of which, incidentally, were released in May.

Rising one place from No. 5 to No. 4 was “Seabiscuit,” which added approximately 400 theaters in its second weekend and saw only a 16 percent drop to $17.5 million. After 10 days, the critical hit has earned $49.1 million, and this is likely only the beginning. Rounding out the top five was “Bad Boys II,” which fell 42 percent to $12.7 million, bringing its total to $111.3 million.

So what happened to “Gigli”? Good question. The barely watchable “comedy” starring Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck was killed by horrible reviews and a complete lack of audience interest and premiered with an embarrassing $3.8 million, placing eighth for the weekend. To put that in some perspective, that’s a little better than “From Justin to Kelly”’s $2.7 million but considerably less than the $5.8 million Mandy Moore’s disappointing “How to Deal” grossed in its first three days. In other words, it looks like “Gigli” rhymes with “flop.”