The Rock lays smack down on Stiller

A New York personal injury lawyer might be required to recover the damages done to Ben Stiller’s career after his latest film, The Heartbreak Kid, a Peter and Bobby Farrelly remake of the 1970s Neil Simon-penned comedy, debuted in second place behind Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s family comedy, The Game Plan.

Typically, family-rated comedies have always done better at the box office than R-rated fare, but the Farrelly Brothers have made careers out of exceeding expectations for R-rated gross-out comedies, as has Stiller. Not this time, though, as the former WWE champion’s family comedy, in its second week of release, outpaced the first-week bow of The Game Plan.

The Game Plan scored $16.3M to take first at the box office this weekend, while The Heartbreak Kid took in only $14M. Touchstone Pictures had hoped for a $17M debut for the Farrelly-Stiller flick, according to published reports on LA Weekly, Variety and various other online sources.