Dragon breathes fire on Kick-Ass
It may have been perceived as a cool comic book, but the Mark Millar-John Romita Jr.-created satire on the superhero genre packed a weak punch at the box office. Although largely true to the seven-issue mini-series that inspired the movie, Kick-Ass alienated audiences with its unique mix of ultra-profanity, ultra-violence and endangerment of young children.
While certain to become a cult classic, the concept of a 10-year-old homicidal girl as a mixture of Batman’s Robin and The Punisher didn’t play well with audiences. In fact, the family-friendly How To Train Your Dragon, just barely edged Kick-Ass out of the top spot at the box office; Dragon drew a $20 million weekend in its fourth week of release, while Kick-Ass debuted to a mere $19.75 million against a modest $30 million budget. Producers had anticipated a $30 million debut for Kick-Ass.
Kick-Ass is the second hard-R superhero film to flop with mass market audiences; just over a year ago, Watchman also failed to live up to box office expectations, though with a much larger production budget at risk.
Bad word of mouth was partly to blame; the studio ad campaign made Kick-Ass look a lot more light-hearted and family-friendly than the film actually was, which is always a bad idea with hard-R material. So it seems that although the public at large still loves their superhero films to have a dark edge, ala Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, there are certain lines they would rather not be crossed in a mass-market superhero film.
Date Night dropped to third place in its second week of release, drawing $17.3 million, while Death At a Funeral underperformed even worse, drawing just $17.0 million to take fourth place. Fortunately for Death At a Funeral, it’s modest $21 million budget will keep it a money-maker.
Clash of the Titans fell to a disappointing fifth place with $15.7 million in only its third week. Nothing else made more than $5.8 million on the weekend.
Next weekend, Warner Brothers is betting better fortunes for The Losers, which is also a comic book adaptation, though less obviously so. Yet the Jennifer Lopez pregnancy rom-com, The Back-Up Plan, seems the odds-on favorite.