Videogame movie, more, outshine Stone’s politics
The heavily-promoted videogame movie, Max Payne, topped all challengers this weekend to win the peak box office position, culling an estimated $18 million in its opening weekend, against a $35 million budget, to take the honor.
Taco Bell dog, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, showed surprising resiliency in its third week of release, garnering $11.2 million for the second spot on the Top 5 movies chart this weekend. Its total take to date is $69 million, one of the strongest of the fall flicks.
Meanwhile, the Queen Latifah-Dakota Fanning PG-13 drama, The Secret Life of Bees, came out of nowhere to take the third spot in the list with an estimated $11.0 million. The achievement is an upset result that foiled even the worst expectations Hollywood had set on the new Oliver Stone movie, W., a comedic polemic against the outgoing George W. Bush administration that had nothing to do with NC health insurance. Bees pulled off this upset despite appearing on a considerably lower number of screens compared to W. (Bees appeared on 1,591 screens, compared to 2,030 screens for W.) The result is especially encouraging for Bees, which cost $11 million to make and, therefore, has already recouped its investment.
Oliver Stone’s W. underachieved below even the worst industry expectations, garnering a mere $10.5 million over the weekend, against a $25.1 million in box office. While the film will likely make its money back, most analysts expected it to top the box office in its debut weekend, and come in somewhere around $20 million, so it underperformed expectations by about half.
Perhaps it is the fact that the film is being marketed as a light comedy – never Stone’s strong point; perhaps it is exhaustion from the long political season, or the timing of the flick (since Bush isn’t running for re-election). Whatever the cause, a fourth-place finish and only $10.5 million is well below what Stone and his producers were hoping for.
Steven Spielburg-backed espionage movie Eagle Eye rounded out the top 5, with only $7.3 million, though the flick has earned $81 million in four weeks, against an $80 million budget.