42 knocks it out of the park!
Baseball season is now in full swing, but the games themselves aren’t enough for sports fans: the Jackie Robinson biopic 42 cracked one into the bleachers this weekend with $27.2 million.
This feel-good look at the base-stealing, barrier-breaking legend’s triumphant career scored the biggest opening ever for a baseball-themed movie, including the recent MONEYBALL ($19.5M) and TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE ($12.1M). It was also a home run with audiences, who cheered the movie with an ‘A+’ CinemaScore.
Thrown out at second was SCARY MOVIE 5, with a $15.1 million opening weekend. The latest in Dimension’s seemingly interminable spoof series marks a box office low point for the franchise, starting out far below SCARY MOVIE 4’s $40.2M first weekend and even less than the (formerly) weakest entry, SCARY MOVIE 2’s $20.5M debut.
Did moviegoers already get their annual fill of paranormal parody from January’s cheapie A HAUNTED HOUSE ($18.1M opening, $2.5M budget)? Or were they simply repelled by the notion of paying to see a movie prominently featuring tabloid-magnets Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan? Who knows, but considering SCARY MOVIE 5 only cost half the production budget of the previous three, its relatively limp performance still probably won’t spell the end of the brand.
THE CROODS made their home in third place with $13.2 million, taking advantage of being the only general family-friendly entertainment available in theaters. The CG cavepeople nudged G.I. JOE: RETALIATION into fourth with $10.8 million as the Cobra-fighting troops cross the $100 million mark domestically and zero in on $250M worldwide.
Last weekend’s winner, the remake of the Sam Raimi classic EVIL DEAD, suffered a fairly standard horror movie plunge and dropped about 63% in its second week with $9.5 million for fifth place. The three-dimensionalized T-Rex was nipping at the demons’ heels as JURASSIC PARK 3D stomped into sixth with $8.8 million.
The Ryan Gosling/Bradley Cooper drama THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES expanded to just over 500 theaters, and joined OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL and TYLER PERRY’S TEMPTATION: CONFESSIONS OF A MARRIAGE COUNSELOR on the bottom half of the chart, adding another $4 million to its limited release total.
Outside the chart, THE HOST disappeared from the list after just two weeks, a fairly definitive strike against author Stephenie Meyer as a source of post-TWILIGHT movie franchises. And director Danny Boyle’s new brain-bending thriller TRANCE expanded to 438 screens but was virtually ignored — aside from Raimi’s OZ (in its sixth week since release), its per-screen average was lower than anything in the Top 10.
While the US has to wait until next weekend to see Tom Cruise uncover the secrets of a post-apocalyptic Earth, OBLIVION opened in a number of international territories with $61 million.
Besides the sci-fi action of OBLIVION, next weekend offers the hip-hop drama FILLY BROWN and the 300-screen release of Rob Zombie’s THE LORDS OF SALEM.
Will you be checking out OBLIVION next weekend? VOTE HERE!
| # | MOVIE TITLE | WKND $ | TOTAL $ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 42 | $27.2 M | NEW |
| 2 | Scary Movie 5 | $15.1 M | NEW |
| 3 | The Croods | $13.2 M | $142.5 M |
| 4 | G.I. Joe: Retaliation | $10.8 M | $102.4 M |
| 5 | Evil Dead | $9.5 M | $41.5 M |
| 6 | Olympus Has Fallen | $7.2 M | $81.8 M |
| 7 | Jurassic Park 3D | $8.8 M | $31.9 M |
| 8 | Oz the Great and Powerful | $4.9 M | $219.4 M |
| 9 | Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor | $4.5 M | $45.4 M |
| 10 | The Place Beyond the Pines | $4 M | $5.4 M |