Weekend Box-Office: April 27-29, 2012

Another win for Think Like a Man!

It was not a very big weekend at the box office (30% lower than this time last year), and it certainly wasn’t a good week for new releases. Either the new offerings just didn’t seem too appealing, or audiences are simply saving their excitement and cash for next week’s THE AVENGERS.

Last week’s winner, the relationship comedy/book advertisement THINK LIKE A MAN, kept four new releases away from the top as it brought in another $18 million, pushing its 10-day total to $60.8M. Not a bad return on a $12M budget.

After that was a tight race for second place, and the animated THE PIRATES! BAND OF MISFITS barely squeaked past the rest with an $11.4 million opening. But the stop-motion/CG-assisted blend from Aardman, the people behind WALLACE AND GROMIT and CHICKEN RUN, has been successfully plundering elsewhere, with an additional $63M looted from international audiences.

Hot on the rudder of the Hugh Grant-voiced buccaneer was the Zac Efron romance THE LUCKY ONE with $11.3M in its second week, followed very closely by THE HUNGER GAMES with $11.2M. After six weeks in theaters, Katniss hasn’t lost too much of her edge, battling past the $600 million mark for the movie’s global total.

And then there’s the latest Judd Apatow-produced release THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT, which conveniently landed in number five. The romcom, directed by star Jason Segel’s FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL collaborator Nick Stoller, collected just $11.1M despite being pushed as “from the producer of BRIDESMAIDS”. On the bright side for Apatow, his name can attract some fine talent without having to overspend — the movie only cost $30M.

(Note that with such a slim margin between those four movies’ weekend estimates, their true placement in the top 5 could potentially shift when the actual amounts are figured out tomorrow.)

On the second half of the list was another pair of new movies, the latest Jason Statham punch-up SAFE and the Poe thriller THE RAVEN, which made $7.8M and $7.2M respectively. That SAFE take is on the low end even for a Statham vehicle (THE KILLER ELITE opened to $9.3M and THE MECHANIC made $11.4M its first weekend), but his square jaw should bring in plenty of scratch alongside the mugs of Sly, Arnie, Bruce, Jet, Dolph, JCVD and all the rest when THE EXPENDABLES 2 hits in August.

We haven’t seen THE RAVEN star John Cusack in theaters since HOT TUB TIME MACHINE over two years ago, and this probably wasn’t the reception he was hoping for (same for director James McTeigue, whose last movie NINJA ASSASSIN opened to $13.3M). Perhaps the Fall would’ve been a better time for a dark R-rated murder story based on Edgar Allen Poe’s macabre tales?

After that comes a few more bucks for the documentary CHIMPANZEE, THE THREE STOOGES and THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, as 21 JUMP STREET, AMERICAN REUNION, TITANIC 3D and MIRROR MIRROR make their departure from the Top 10. The new Richard Linklater film BERNIE opened at just three locations but had a strong $30k per-screen average, and the Jack Black black comedy will be hitting a few more screens soon.

And while North American audiences impatiently wait for THE AVENGERS to assemble next weekend, the Marvel heroes have already hit international screens and gathered at least $178 million so far. Are you anxious to see THE AVENGERS? And if not, what May release are you most looking forward to seeing? VOTE HERE!