May 26, 2012

Race to the Top of the Box Office

by Goldy Moldavsky | Published March 16, 2009

Race To Witch Mountain raced to the top of the box office this weekend with an estimated $25 million, making it Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s biggest family movie opening. With a 67.3 percent drop from last week, Watchmen bought in to its second-week-slump expectations and slid to second place with $18 million, bringing its two-week total to $86 million.

The only other new release to break into the top five was Last House on the Left. The remake of the 1972 Wes Craven film made $14.6 million, coming in at third place. With the smallest decrease in nationwide releases, Taken continued to stay strong in fourth place with $6.6 million, bringing its total domestic gross to $126.8 million. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail came in fifth place with $5.1 million to make $83 million in four weeks.

Miss March, a sex comedy romp from the creators of “The Whitest Kids You Know,” opened in 10th place with just $2.3 million. Another new release, Sunshine Cleaning, starring Amy Adams and Emily Blunt, fared a little bitter. With a limited release in only four theaters, the movie managed to rake in a $53,500 per-screen average, bringing in a total of $214,000. The movie expands to 50 more theaters on March 20th.

Next week, Nicolas Cage’s apocalyptic thriller Knowing debuts but he’ll have some competition from Julia Roberts, carrying a movie for the first time since 2004’s Closer with Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity, also starring Clive Owen. And for the male-oriented comedy fans there’s I Love You, Man, with Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. It’s anyone’s guess who’ll end up on top next weekend but these three movies will surely make it into the top five.

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Comment by steve, trade show booths on 3/20/09 at 6:38 pm: My wife saw the original “Escape from Witch Mountain (?)” as a kid and can’t wait to see “Race To Witch Mountain”. I’m not so sure, but it’s got the Rock, and the Rock in a movie is like pizza. There is great pizza and good pizza, but almost never bad pizza, so I guess we’ll be seeing the movie. :)
~ Steve, aka trade show booths