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Posted April 15, 2013 by Seth Paul in News
 
 

Box Office Weekend: Robinson Leads the Way over a Tepid Scary Movie

42Is it wrong for a well-regarded biopic to win the weekend over a comedy that was not even screened for critics? Well, of course not, though to say the abysmally reviewed Scary Movie 5 is a bomb is not exactly true. While the Jackie Robinson movie 42, starring Chadwick Boseman in the title role and veteran actor Harrison Ford, made a comfortable estimated $27.3 million, it has yet to make good on its $40 million production costs, though it is likely to make that up over the next few weeks. However, Scary Movie 5, while lambasted by critics and receiving the worst reviews of any of the Scary Movie franchise, did surprisingly well on its own terms, its estimated $15.2 million a good start on its $20 million budget. It is still the worst opening of any of the films in the series by a large amount, and very unlikely to reach the $71.3 million Scary Movie 2, the previous lowest earner of the series, achieved.

The Croods made its first domestic profit this weekend with an estimated $13.2 million, while G.I. Joe: Retaliation cannot say the same with its estimated $10.8 million. Evil Dead fell pretty far from its first-place finish last week, though its estimated $9.5 million is more than enough to ensure the remake’s success at the box office. Jurassic Park 3D managed to make a profit on its 3D conversion with an estimated $8.8 million this week bringing its totals to $31.9 million, but the conversion process in general appears to be losing audiences, as its totals still fall well short of those earned by Titanic 3D and Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D.

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There were no big changes at hand for either Olympus Has Fallen or Oz the Great and Powerful…both films, earning estimates of $7.3 million and $4.9 million respectively, proved domestic box office successes and only see dwindling returns as part of the natural order of the movie business. Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, with an estimated $4.5 million, saw a much bigger loss from last week, though at $45.4 million in domestic revenue it is by no means a film Tyler Perry will see as a failure. Lastly, this week sees a small release getting a bigger one, as The Place Beyond the Pines, a drama starring Ryan Gosling as a motorcyclist who commits a crime to help his daughter and Bradley Cooper as the cop on his tail, opened to wider release and an increase in income. Its relatively small estimate of $4.1 million gives the Focus Films release a needed boost, bringing it just a bit closer to its $15 million production costs.

Weekend Box Office (April 12th – April 14th)

  1. 42…$27.3 million
  2. Scary Movie 5…$15.2 million
  3. The Croods…$13.2 million
  4. G.I. Joe: Retaliation…$10.8 million
  5. Evil Dead…$9.5 million
  6. Jurassic Park 3D…$8.8 million
  7. Olympus Has Fallen…$7.3 million
  8. Oz the Great and Powerful…$4.9 million
  9. Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor…$4.5 million
  10. The Place Beyond the Pines…$4.1 million
Seth Paul

Seth Paul

When not failing to write novels and screenplays, box-office guru Seth writes humorous comedy tracks for films under the name "The One Man Band" that can be found at Rifftrax.com. Although, he has recently succeeded in writing the novella "Jack Alan and the Case of the Not-Exactly Rocket Scientists," available as an eBook on Amazon. He is also the English voice of Zak in "Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space."