As predicted, Paramount/Marvel/Disney's
Thor was again the titan of the box office,
with an another $34.5 million (down just 48 percent from last weekend, which isn't too
shabby for a monstrous studio production). It isn't going to end up being a monster hit, but it did what it was supposed to do: get the Thor
character out there so audiences will know what the hell is going on in
The
Avengers next summer.
At #2 was
Bridesmaids, a winning comedy that proves that men don't have a
monopoly on laughs, with a reported $24.4 million, well ahead of the $10 million range most
were predicting. If Hollywood is good at one thing, though, it's underestimating audiences,
particularly audiences that it doesn't give much credence to in the first place (in this case,
women). Remember how shocked everyone was a few years ago when the Tyler Perry movies
started opening and making boatloads of money? There was a chorus of "Wow, black people
go to the movies too!" At the very least, we should be getting some above average, female-
fronted comedies coming our way in the next few years, god willing. Hopefully though,
someone will recognize that it was the quality of
Bridesmaids that really made it
connect with audiences of both sexes.
The weekend's other biggish debut, Sony's absolutely abhorrent
Priest faltered at #4
with just $14.5 million. A boring, visually-and-dramatically inert vampire sci-fi movie starring
Paul Bettany and directed by visual effects dude Scott Stewart, it failed to connect with
audiences and had a weak tally despite the increase in ticket prices (naturally, it's in
3D). My review is forthcoming but audiences had the right idea: stay far, far away from this
thing.
Besides the new releases, there isn't a whole lot to report on concerning this weekend's haul. It seems
that since female audiences were flocking to
Bridesmaids, they didn't have much
interest in last week's romantic comedies. Both
Jumping the Broom and
Something Borrowed fell into the bottom half of the top ten (sixth and seventh place,
respectively), and could be out of the Top 10 altogether next week.
It is worth noting, though, that with close to $125 million, Blue Sky Animation's
Rio
has beat out
Rango to become the highest grossing animated film of 2011. This is
something of a disappointment, because
Rango is something of a modern animated
classic and
Rio is more of a brightly colored distraction, but oh well. I'm still a sucker
for any animated movies. Of course,
Rio will only have those boasting rights for a few
more weeks, as a trio of big animated movies are just around the bend: DreamWorks
Animation's
Kung Fu Panda 2, Disney/Pixar's
Cars 2 and Disney's
traditionally animated new
Winnie the Pooh. This summer is going to be very
animated.