Don't get me wrong,
Thor's lightning-bolt-y $66 million was a strong debut,
for sure. It was enough to prop its cumulative worldwide total to $242 million, which isn't
exactly something to sneer at. But remember, just last weekend, a lowly bunch of mortal
humans, equipped with nothing more than fast cars and bad attitudes, in the decidedly more
low-rent
Fast Five, made nearly $90 million.
If it's one thing, the somewhat so-so opening numbers suggest that not every hero can
be brought to the big screen with the same panache as, say, Spider-Man. But, with the title
card at the end of the credits ("
Thor Will Return in
The
Avengers"), maybe they weren't trying to build a stand-alone franchise as much as one
LEGO block in the eventual tower that is the Marvel cinematic universe. I liked
Thor,
but the more I thought about it, the more I found it to be a middling entry in the pantheon
of superhero movies – more puny human than golden god. It seems audiences agreed.
A pair of romantic comedies also debuted weekend, and the results were less than
stellar.
Jumping the Broom, which got some surprisingly strong critical notices and
stars Angela Bassett and the stunningly beautiful Paula Patton, debuted at #3 with $15.2
million, while the more formulaic-looking
Something Borrowed survived savage
critical drubbings to make $13.9 million, enough for fourth place.
Hopefully the debut of this weekend's genuinely brilliant
Bridesmaids will be
enough for people to kick the bad romantic comedy habit. Ah, a boy can dream, can't he? It'll
also be worth noting what Bridesmaids does because it's a fairly hard-R-rated movie, in stark
opposition to the cuddly, more-easily-digestible PG-13 ratings of
Jumping the Broom
and
Something Borrowed. My feeling is that once people see
Bridesmaids,
the other two films will wither quickly. There's just too much to love in
Bridesmaids.
The only other bit of business to talk about is the utter bombing of Jodie Foster's just-awful
The Beaver, which opened in 22 locations and made a paltry $107,577. The
film is supposed to expand on May 20th, nationwide, but that might not be the best route to
go down at this point, all things considered. It would have been one thing if the movie (which
was at one point considered for direct-to-DVD dumping) could have triumphantly soared past
the behind-the-scenes brouhaha of its star, Mel Gibson, to become a critical darling and an
audience favorite. But the movie limped into theaters this weekend with tepid notices
(which were, quite frankly, way too kind to the tonally amorphous mess of a film) and
unresponsive audiences.
The Top 10: