Weekend Receipts: Iron Man Hoodwinks Robin
This weekend at the box office offered a wealth of options: overstuffed sequel or overlong prequel? Amanda Seyfried in Verona's court or Queen Latifah on the basketball court? It's enough to make you curl up with a bottle of expensive vodka and your cockatoo as company -- and wouldn't you know, that's what most moviegoers preferred to do. Here are the weekend receipts.
1. Iron Man 2
Gross: $53,000,000 ($212,160,000)
Screens: 4,390 (PSA: $12,073)
Weeks: 2 (change: -58.6%)
Iron Man 2 can't hope to have the legs and surprise factor of its predecessor, but for such a front-loaded sequel -- especially one with buzz this mixed -- a drop of 58.6% in the second weekend falls into the "eh, coulda been worse category." I mean, look what it's already cumed. Tony will be fine, even if Pepper is already freaking out about the figures.
2. Robin Hood
Gross: $37,114,000 (new)
Screens: 3,503 (PSA: $10,595)
Weeks: 1
And speaking of "coulda been worse"...though it's by no means a smash, and it won't even get within spitting distance of its budget domestically, Robin Hood opened juuust big enough for no one to get fired over at Universal -- yet. Will it sink in the weeks to come? Oh, sure. But who's gonna be paying attention then?
3. Letters to Juliet
Gross: $13,750,000 (new)
Screens: 2,968 (PSA: $4,630)
Weeks: 1
Dear Juliet,
Did you have any idea that Gael Garcia Bernal was in this movie? No, really -- and he's kind of the best part, too. Maybe if we'd put him in the ads, we could have lured in some more of those indier-than-thou girls who thought my movie was just mall-chick fluff. Oh well.
XOXO
Amanda Seyfried
4. Just Wright
Gross: $8,500,000 (new)
Screens: 1,831 (PSA: $4,642)
Weeks: 1
Just Wright is the first time Queen Latifah's really had to carry a movie on her back since 2006's Last Holiday, and that one opened to $12 million. Siphon off a million each year since to account for Latifah's waning draw power, and this is where you might expect to end up.
5. How to Train Your Dragon
Gross: $5,120,000 ($207,764,000)
Screens: 2,620 (PSA: $1,954)
Weeks: 8 (change: -23.4%)
This DreamWorks production has hung around for 8 weeks, but it's about to find itself overtaken by its studio stablemate Shrek. Still, at least there's the inevitable themed wedding to look forward to.
Comments
Summit really screwed up with the release date for Letters to Juliet. It could have been a quiet late summer hit since it was given an A- in surveys, instead it seems to be a mild mid-May disappointment, though it might have decent legs due to positive word of mouth. The problem for this movie is that Robin Hood turned out to be this weekend's date movie. I saw both Friday night and Robin Hood had more couples.
BTW, Bernal was the worst part of the movie imo. He's a good actor but he played an annoying stereotype in this movie, I couldn't wait for him to shut up. The best part was Amanda Seyfried, second was Vanessa Redgrave.
Poor Ridley & Russell ... when I first saw the preview for Robin, I saw their names and Crow riding around on horseback with a sword and thought -- "Cool, a prequel to Gladiator! Great idea!"
Turns out, they screwed the pooch on this one.
Should have just made a Gladiator Prequel guys!
Dude, Iron Man 2 was absolutely amazing!
Lou
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