Ellen Page spends the entirety of Whip It trying to escape the beauty contest circuit, but if she'd just submitted to those traditional tropes of teen femininity and won the big tiara in the third act, maybe the movie would have opened to better than $4.8 million this weekend. As the dismal bows of Jennifer's Body and Whip It have proved this fall, the teen girls who turned Twilight into a phenomenon may be powerful, but producers who ignore their desire for submissive romance, pretty dresses, and conventional female leads do so at their own peril. (I'd hate to be attempting a studio sale of rock grrl biopic The Runaways in this climate). Don't believe me? Check out this list of recent films that opened better than Whip It:
Opening Weekend: $5.3 million
Opening Weekend: $7.5 million
Opening Weekend: $6.1 million
Opening Weekend: $9.4 million
Opening Weekend: $7.7 million
Opening Weekend: $6.8 million
Opening Weekend: $5.8 million
Opening Weekend: $10.8 million
Opening Weekend: $13.6 million
Opening Weekend: $5.7 million
Opening Weekend: $11.4 million