The U.S. cinema box office continues its long decline. New release Tower Heist finished below expectations, coming in second behind returning champ Puss in Boots.
The Brett Ratner-directed Tower Heist got relatively good reviews—69 percent positive, according to Rotten Tomatoes—but the good reviews and star power of Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy failed to propel it to the top spot, earning just $25 million while Puss brought in $33 mil.
It was a solid weekend for traditional-themed movies at the U.S box office. The entertaining and Christian-themed 3D animated film Toy Story 3 was the top draw at the U.S. box office last weekend, bringing in an estimated $109 million during the three-day period. It was the most successful opening weekend ever for a Disney/Pixar animated film. Crowd-pleasers The Karate Kid and The A-Team both did very well in their second week of release, in second and third places with tallies of $29 million and $13.8 million, respectively, expressing their themes of self-reliance, duty, honor, and the value of hard work. Another film with clear Christian themes and traditional values, Shrek Forever After, finished in fifth place in its fifth week of release, bringing in $5.5 million. Now nearing the end of its main theatrical run, Shrek Forever After has grossed an estimated $223 million in U.S. ticket sales. The supernatural Wild West revenge film Jonah Hex stumbled badly in its first weekend, debuting in seventh place with just under $5.4 million. Perhaps it’s just an amazing coincidence that the $35 million production’s two lead performers, Josh Brolin and Megan Fox, have made numerous leftist-progressive public comments in recent months,
Hollywood had a record weekend at the U.S. box office during the past few days, with the comedy Valentine’s Day bringing in a startling $66.9 million over the four-day President’s Day period. Over just the three days of the actual weekend it snagged $56.4 million, all in the film’s first week of release. Directed by Hollywood comedy veteran Garry Marshall and featuring several popular or semi-popular stars, an obvious concept people can relate to, the promise of some laughs and emotional manipulation, and a tsunami of commercials, the film was pretty much guaranteed to be both awful and a hit with audiences who have already seen Couple’s Retreat numerous times on DVD or DVR. Also opening strong were the mythological adventure Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, which finished second with a healthy $33.8 million, and The Wolfman, at $36.5 million. Yesterday alone, Valentine’s Day brought in $23.5 million to become the highest-grossing film ever on Valentine’s Day, which should hardly be much of a surprise. One would expect a film called Arbor Day to be the biggest Arbor Day grosser if it has as many stars as Valentine’s. Action films From Paris with Love (John Travolta) and
The unexpectedly strong box office perfomance of both Couples Retreat and Paranormal Activity show that respect for genre traditions and fundamental American values consistently make for successful popular art, S. T. Karnick writes.
On the heels of a public relations juggernaut with the inspiring message that it’s "not as anti-Catholic as The Da Vinci Code!", the cinematic conspiracy thriller Angels and Demons finished first at the U.S. box office during the past weekend, providing some useful evidence about the effects of church boycotts. S. T. Karnick examines the facts.
Race to Witch Mountain knocked Watchmen off the top spot in movie box office receipts this past weekend. S. T. Karnick explains why.
He’s Just Not That Into You, a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johannsen, and several other thirtysomething Hollywood luminaries, led the U.S. box office during its first weekend of release, taking in $27.5 million. That’s a decent though not spectacular number, and its $7 million above what industry analysts had expected it to bring in.
Yes, The Dark Knight made more money in U.S. theaters than any film in history except Titanic (in nominal dollars, unadjusted for inflation), but in terms of sheer return on the investment dollar, you’d have been better off putting your cash into the teen vampire movie Twilight, the teen musical High School Musical 3: Senior Year, or Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert. And you’d have been much, much smarter to invest in Kirk Cameron’s small, independent, Christian film Fireproof: it cost a half-million dollars to make and brought in $33.1 million, a return of mnore than sixty times its budget.
U.S. movie audiences stayed with tried-and-true genre films and rejected big-budget Hollywood Significance over the Thanksgiving weekend.
U.S. movie audiences continued their trend of avoiding political and arty films and sticking to genre entertainment this past weekend, as the teen vampire movie Twilight led with an impressive $70.6 million U.S. box office take.
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