Tagged: Weekend box office

Moviegoers “Into You,” even if “He’s” not…

The bluntly-worded relationship advice bestseller, “He’s Just Not That Into You,” is now the box office champion relationship movie of the weekend. Raking in $27.4 million, the flick blew away the competition.

Not as literally, however, as Liam Neeson’s latest thriller, “Taken,” which posted a strong second weekend, adding around $20.3 million to its now 10-day total of $53.3 million. Not bad for an actor who allegedly “quit” the movie biz a few years ago after his involvement with the Star Wars franchises; since then, Neeson’s wowed audiences with his portrayal of Ras Ah Ghul in Batman Begins, as well as his intense turn in Taken. In fact, Neeson’s arguably appeared in better roles since “quitting” Hollywood than before; he’s appeared in about a dozen films since souring on Tinseltown after 2002′s Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, and he has at least five more roles scheduled between now and 2011, in which he’s expected to turn in a performance as Abraham Lincoln in a bio-film named, simply, Lincoln.

Coraline, the twisted children’s film from the pen of Neil Gaiman, came in third with $16.3 million, while Steve Martin’s sequel, Pink Panther 2, managed only $12.0 million for fourth place, despite appearing on over 1,000 more screens. Paul Blart: Mall Cop rounded out the Top 5 with $11.0 million and the sci-fi, comic book-inspired thriller Push could manage no better than sixth place with an anemic $10.2 million.

Everything else trailed badly.

High School Musical 3 earns extended run

While stock experts may prefer to monitor Tonalin CLA, HollywoodIdiocy.com is all about the weekend box office, and the much-hyped High School Musical 3 earned and extended run atop the box office this past weekend. Tops now for two weeks in a row, the sprightly live action film musical earned $15 million in its second weekend of release, bringing its to-date total to $61.7 million against an $11 million budget.

The controversial sex comedy, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, debuted strongly enough to earn second place, raking in $10.6 million in its opening bow, while Saw V fell to third place on Halloween weekend with $10.1 million.

Changeling showed marked improvement in its first week of full release, drawing $9.4 million to bring its running total to $10 million. And a strong showing by The Haunting of Molly Hartley, a Halloween spooker, finally dethroned the comeback of the Taco Bell dog movie, Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Haunting drew $6 million to BHC’s $4.7 million.

Burn After Reading tops box office

The new Coen Brothers movie, Burn After Reading, lurched out a narrow victory over Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys to take the top of box office honors this weekend, hauling in $19.4 million against a $37 million budget, compared to $18 million for Perry’s movie.

Righteous Kill was a distant third place with $16.5 million, and in fourth place was The Women, which trailed badly with $10 million. Late summer hits like The House Bunny, Tropic Thunder and The Dark Knight all trailed in the distance with around $4 million each, showing that the movie-going public is finally ready for something – anything, really – new.

It does not require the services of a Chicago accident attorney to figure out that few of these movies will have much staying power, save for Burn After Reading.

However, next week’s fantastic four releases include a much better cadre of movies, including the highly anticipated Ricky Gervais comedy, Ghost Town; as well as high-profile releases like the animated Igor family film, classy Neil LaBute thriller Lakeview Terrace and the Kate Hudson romantic comedy, My Best Friend’s Girl.

I’d place my bets on Ghost Town being the most entertaining, and Igor on being the highest-grossing.

Hulk smash! (Box office)

Well, it doesn’t quite measure up to Iron Man’s opening, nor does it compete with even the first Hulk movie, but there are several reasons Marvel Studios should be encouraged by Incredible Hulk’s $54.5 million opening. First, it was $20 million ahead of the next-closest feature, Kung Fu Panda, currently in its second week of release; second, it seems like a movie that, rather than losing steam fast on bad word of mouth as the first Hulk movie did, seems to be holding a bit more steady, thanks in part to a cameo by Robert Downey Jr. in his Iron Man/Tony Stark persona, which gave Incredible Hulk some legs off the goodwill generated by the very successful Iron Man movie.

Rather than go with big-name director Ang Lee this time, Marvel went with a lesser name directing, but a more faithful adaptation of its comic book hero. Instead of an artsy mess, this Hulk movie delivers all the expected “Hulk smash!” action that the first one failed to deliver. The film also fields a fresh cast to make the break from the Ang Lee-directed mess complete.

Replacing Eric Bana is Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, and replacing Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross is Liv Tyler, hot off her appearance in the surprise summer slasher hit, The Strangers. Plus, comic fans were thrilled to see Hulk battling his arch-nemesis, the Abomination, rather than a bunch of stupid Hulk-Dogs. Incredible Hulk is an upgrade in most every respect, including a trim $150 million budget, a third of which the movie has already made back; by the time it has enjoyed its domestic run and raked in some foreign receipts, this is a Hulk film that ought to make money.

As mentioned earlier, Kung Fu Panda held firm at second place with $34.3 million, and just short of $118 million domestically in its second week of release, which should have voice star Jack Black selecting out new home furniture with his royalty payments; followed closely by M. Night Shyamalan’s R-rated The Happening, which did better than expected, raking in $30.5 million to take third place, a take that will certainly be good news after the slim $60 million budget it took to make the flick.

Adam Sandler’s You Don’t Mess With the Zohan was solid in fourth place with about half that take, at $16.4 million; Indiana Jones added $13.5 million in fifth place, once again besting Sex and the City in staying power.

Sex dropped out of the top five but did decent business as alternative programming to the male- and child-dominated selections at the box office. Sex took in $10.1 million in its third week. No other movie cracked the $10 million mark, although four other flicks did $1 million or better. They are Iron Man ($5.1 million after seven weeks in release), The Strangers ($4.0 million), Prince Caspian ($3 million), and What Happens In Vegas ($1.7 million.), which means all Top 10 movies grossed at least $1.7 million or more.

Iron Man destroys weekend box office

The Paramount-Marvel Iron Man movie surpassed the weekend’s $85 million box office expectations to take in a gigantic $100 million over its first three days, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. The superheroic romp, starring long-troubled box office star Robert Downey Jr. as a superhero with a substance abuse problem, proved to be the perfect fit between actor and character, and it’s aggressive over-expectations box office performance almost guarantees a sequel.

The move cost over $140 million to make, but with all US and foreign box office calculated to date, the studio has already raked in $200 million since its Friday global debut, with about $104 million from all US receipts (the movie debuted a day early in select markets) and over $96 million overseas.

With 96 percent of reviewers giving the film either an A or a B, it is the best-reviewed and highest-grossing superhero flick since Spider-Man, and easily places the film as the second-best Marvel superhero franchise to date, surpassing X-Men and Fantastic Four, as well as many others.

You can bet Downey, who has revived his career with this roll and these box office results, will be asking for and receiving travel trailers full of money for the inevitable sequels this film seems sure to inspire. While true to the spirit of the comic book, Iron Man’s origin was updated from its Cold War roots to a contemporary War on Terror setting, which may have also played a part in the film’s wide appeal.

Behind Iron Man, Made of Honor came in a distant second with $15 million in its first week, well below even half of its modest $40 million budget. Baby Mama came in third with over $10 million and Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay round out the top five with around $6 million each.

Box office receipts are sure to show more vitality in the top five next week, when Speed Racer joins the May race of the early summer blockbusters.

Prom Night blahs its way to $20.8 million debut

Let’s face it. I grew up in the 1980s when the original Prom Night came out, and it was no big whoop, even back then. So it’s a bit surprising that the 2008 remake is such a hit, despite being no better than its 1980s-era original.

The Prom Night franchise is perhaps best remembered for its second installment, which landed a cameo by Jamie Lee Curtis, then hot off her Halloween debut and the then-reigning “queen of scream.”

Now, getting chased around my a knife wielding maniac is standard fare for starlets looking to establish themselves, stumbling down the same path Curtis blazed about 25 years ago. Brittany Snow is the victim in training this time out, and she proves herself servicable if a bit generic.

The flick made its $20 million budget back in the first weekend, though, so expect sequels to follow. Meanwhile, Street Kings did far worse, raking in over $12 million to rank a distant second place; Street Kings also cost $20 million to make, but is less likely to make it back. The moribund Leatherheads dropped to fifth place, narrowly edging out the ever-popular Dr. Seuss film, Horton Hears A Who.

The worst major debut was Miramax’s Smart People, which struggled to reach $4 million and rank seventh. Box office is still in the pre-summer flick slumber; expect things to pick up in May.

In slow weekend, 21 bested ‘em all

While actors plot a way to look like they are threatening to strike mere months after the WGA sent Hollywood back to work by wrapping up their 100-day strike… without actually going on strike… moviegoers seemed a bit disinterested last weekend as 21 maintained the top box office spot with a mere $15.3 million weekend.

All three new movies – Nim’s Island, Leatherheads and The Ruins – fell well short of expectations, taking in $13.2 million, $12.3 million and $8.0 million respectively and ranking second, third and fifth with those takes. Horton Hears A Who raked in another $9.1 million to bring their four-week take to $131 million. Big-screen bomb 10,000 B.C. dropped to 10th place after five weeks and has taken in only $89 million in that time, including around $2 million last weekend, well short of its $105 million production budget, meaning the film won’t break even domestically and will rely on foreign markets and DVD sales to reach black ink.

Of course, the real summer movie rush isn’t quite here yet; that doesn’t kick off until May 2, when Marvel and Paramount’s Iron Man debuts. Until then, the weekend box office isn’t likely to be dominated for very long, but continue to be in the realm of fractional ownership.

Horton hears box office gold

Despite a huge, $20 million challenge from Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns, as well as $10 million bows from Shutter and Drillbit Taylor, it was Dr. Suess’ immortal Horton Hears A Who that remained atop the weekend box office charts this weekend, raking in another $25 million. The animated film’s total is now at $86.47 million and growing, certainly making the film with the $85 million investment required to make the movie.

Horton’s search for the Whos of Whoville might have been aided these days by GPS tracking, but even such technological advances won’t recover the $105 million investment it took to make 10,000 BC, which thus far has only made $76 million and is sinking fast.

By far, the worst bow this week belonged to Under the Same Moon, which debuted at 10th with only $2.6 million.

Weekly box office for March 9, 2008

You might need Panoptx to read the fine print here, but despite winning the weekend box office war in overwhelming fashion this week, 10,000 B.C., which took in an estimated three-day total of $35 million, is being considered a disappointment. That’s because studios were shooting for at least $40 million if not more.

To be honest, my wife and I considered going to 10,000 B.C. this weekend, but ultimately chose to go to Jumper instead, which we hadn’t seen yet, seemed potentially less violent, had a PG-13 rating, and turned out to be a lot of fun and certainly sequel-worthy. However, Jumper slipped all the way down to eighth place this week, raking in only $3.5 million in it’s fourth week of release. The film’s made $75 million to date, but had a lofty, $85 million budget.

Due to it’s hard R rating, Semi-Pro dropped swiftly to fourth place in its second week, adding only $5.9 million to its total, bad news for Will Ferrell. College Road Trip took second place with $14 million while Vantage Point held steady at third in its third week of release. Juno slipped to 13th in its 14th week of release and has an impressive $137.9 million in total box office to date. The Bank Job was a flop, debuting at fifth place, while Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day did an impressive per-screen average in limited release.