Karate Kid sweeps leg of A-Team

In the battle of 80s nostalgia at the box office this weekend, it appears Kung-Fu Kid… er, I mean Karate Kid will sweep the leg of the A-Team this weekend; on Friday Karate Kid opened with $18.8 million at the box office, while the A-Team did well enough to secure a strong second place finish, but still only half as good as the Jackie Chan-Will Smith’s kid pairing.

This 1-2 punch of 80s remakes seems poised to finally knock down Shrek Forever After, which only posted $4.4 million on Friday to take a distant third behind the A-Team, and everything else was even worse than that. It’s likely that the stronger dose of profanity may have been the key to holding back the A-Team from competing more evenly with the Karate Kid, especially since the Karate Kid maintained the PG-rated level of the original film that inspired the remake.

Hopefully, this pair of movies will help lift the box office out of the toilet it’s been in the past week or two, with several hot summer blockbusters fizzling out of the gates, and some unexpected hits coming out of nowhere to post weak, but better than expected, results (see Get Him To the Greek, last weekend).

Word is that Karate Kid is expected to haul in around $50-60 million in its opening weekend, which will almost ensure a sequel with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. The A-Team could be a different story, however; after a decade in development hell, 20 writers and a huge production budget, let’s just say an opening weekend that could dip below $30 million is far less than what most were expecting.