Call this weekend the calm before the storm, the last weekend before the official start of the summer movie season. Performing at the highest level of reasonable expectations, The Other Woman soundly topped the box office with a robust $9.3 million. The $40 million comedy stars Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, and Kate Upton, concerns three women (the wife, the girlfriend, and the mistress) who find out they are all being betrayed by the same guy and get their revenge. The 20th Century Fox release debuted last weekend in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore where it earned $5.3m MMM -0.07%. It expands to 26 international territories this weekend along with its domestic debut. The film got terrible reviews, but there hasn’t been much for adult women since About Last Night back over Valentine’s Day and maybe Labor Day two weeks before tha The picture could end the frame with over/under $25 million. That’s easily the second-biggest “all-by-myself” debut for Ms. Diaz outside of Bad Teacher ($30m) back in June 2011. Outside of the ensemble Charlie’s Angels films (over/under $40m respectively), you’ve got two two-hander $20m debuts (Knight and Day with Tom Cruise and What Happens In Vegas with Ashton Kutcher), and then everything else is $13 million or under. There are a lot of leggy hits (There’s Something About Mary) and underrated gems (Her Sister’s Keeper) in there, but Diaz as a “all by herself” opener is not a sure thing. And since Leslie Mann is not an opener and Kate Upton is more celebrity than actress, this one is all about Diaz and the concept. This is a big win for Ms. Diaz and hopefully it will lead to her (and Leslie Mann) getting better scripts next time out.The other two new releases were relatively quiet. Brick Mansions, from Relativity, earned $3.59 million on its first day playing on 2,400 screen. Mostly “notorious” for being among the last films featuring Paul Walker, this is actually a Eurocorp release from producer Luc Besson. It’s actually a remake of his 2006 French cult action favorite District B13, which he produced. The film co-stars David Belle, one of the stars of the original film and a founder of the “parkour” martial arts that was a mini-fad in action films for about two hours.That the film’s origins are all-but-hidden is somewhat of a mystery.
The film cost $28m to produce, so a $9m debut and $25m finish means it needs to pick up a little steam overseas. Reviews are bad but seem to be bending over backwards to be kind due to Walker’s unexpected death last November. This one will be a blink-and-you-miss it pre-summer action film along the lines of The Big Hit ($10m debut/$27m total) and The Losers ($9m debut/$23m total). I actually look forward to seeing it at some point, both to compare it to the original District B13 and to enjoy the always delightful RZA, whose acting reminds me (in a good way I suppose) of David Caruso in CSI: Miami.
The Quiet Ones, a no-buzz horror film from Lionsgate, dropped on 2,000 screens at earned $1.52 million on its first night. It stars box office dynamos Jared Harris (best known for Mad Men but outright superb as Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows), Sam Claflin (terrible in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Snow White and the Huntsman, but much better in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, and Olivia Cooke (a relative newbie currently starring on A&E’s Bates Motel). The reviews are mixed and it is mostly discussed as being the “other” horror film this month.
The picture, which I saw last night (it’s fine for what it is, but mostly enjoyable due to Jared Harris’s pitch-perfect turn), should close out the weekend with around $4 million. The Quiet Ones is the sixth from the newly revived Hammer Studios, which came back to life after a 30 year nap in 2010. It was very cheap and it will arguably do bigger business in Britain. Although the picture opened two weeks ago in the UK and has earned just $1.14m thus far. The Woman In Black made $34m of its $73m overseas total in the UK, but that Hammer Horror production had better reviews and star power in the form of Daniel Radcliffe’s first post-Harry Potter star turn. I adore Jared Harris, but he’s not box office.
The rest is holdover news. Transcendence dropped 74% from last Friday, which should surprise no one. The Warner Bros. (a division of Time Warner) sci-fi drama earned $1.25 million, giving it a $15.6m cume and it may not cross $20m by tomorrow. Walt Disney’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier earned about $4.49m on its fourth Friday, which means it should do around $14m for the frame and end tomorrow with $223m. With $213m, it has topped Thor: The Dark World ($206m), will top X2 today ($214m), and will soon surpass the $235m gross of X-Men: The Last Stand.
Heaven Is For Real played more like a conventional religious-skewing film (think Fireproof) than the stunningly leggy God’s Not Dead. The Greg Kinnear release from Sony earned $4.05m (-48%) on its second Friday. That’s a bit of a tumble, but it still crossed $42m and should end the second weekend with $50m domestic. Rio 2 is falling just a little faster America thanRio did even as it flies overseas. The Fox animated sequel earned $3.28m, for an $85m cume, setting the stage for a $11.75m weekend and a 17-day cume just under $95m.
Divergent will end the frame just below $140m while Bears will earn around $3.5m for its second weekend for an $11m cume. A Haunted House 2 will make $2.5m on its second weekend and end the frame with around $13.5m. Oh, and on its 155th day of release, Frozen crossed $400 million domestic yesterday, becoming the 19th film to do so in 16 years.
That’s it for today. Join us tomorrow for the weekend numbers.
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