Sex and the City 2 beaten by Shrek at US box office

The stars of Sex and the City 2 co-stars put on brave smiles in Tokyo on Monday as they continued with their worldwide promotional duties in the face of a lousy first weekend at the US box office, where the film was  trounced by Shrek Forever After.
 
Following the Sex and the City 2 premieres in New York and London, Sarah Jessica Parker Parker and her fellow cast members Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis travelled to Japan to promote the film before it opens there next week. They will be hoping Japanese critics are kinder than those who have savaged SATC 2 critics on both sides of the Atlantic in recent days.
 
As reported by The First Post last week, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film one star out of five while New York magazine's David Edelstein called it "an epic eyesore". The film has fared no better in Britain, with the Observer's film critic Philip French likening the two-and-a-half-hour film to "carving the head of Paris Hilton on Mount Rushmore" and "egregiously offensive".
 
At last week's London premiere, SJP and co said the critical slating would make no difference to fans of the long-running TV show and films. Sex and the City 2's director Michael Patrick King insisted: "Critics are the people who go into the middle of a big party with a big fire hose and just wet everyone down, but the Sex And The City fans will just shake it off and have another cocktail and laugh."
 
But the box office for America's Memorial Day weekend told a different story as movie-goers plumped for the Shrek film - in its second week - over Sex and the City 2 in its opening weekend. The 3D version of Shrek took $43.3 million over three days in comparison to Sex and The City 2's $32.1 million.
 
So it seems fans have been affected by bad reviews: the first Sex and the City movie earned $57m in its opening three days in 2008. ·