Despite the franchise's nearly impenetrable appeal (five films in the initial go-around, an
animated series, a hugely successful Tim Burton remake, and so on),
Rise of the Planet of
the Apes was far from a surefire hit. And yet it managed to conquer the weekend
box office, with a surprisingly strong $54.8 million dollars. Rise, indeed.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which plays like a terrifically engaging, socially
conscious prison escape movie (with some of the most knockout visual effects you'll ever
see), had an agonizing journey to the screen, going through a number of permutations and
being passed over by virtually every director working today (before finally being helmed by
little known British filmmaker Rupert Wyatt) – and that was before the half-dozen times it
swapped release dates, forcing the poor visual effects guys to have aneurysms, I'm sure.
But here's the thing: it came out, they made their release date (partially thanks to a couple
of the industry's best action movie editors – Conrad Buff and Mark Goldblatt), and, shockingly,
turned out to have been warmly embraced by audiences and critics alike. This probably has a
lot to do with the movie's emphasis on emotion over spectacle and Wyatt's whip-fire
direction. You really feel for the lead ape, Caesar (played by Andy Serkis in a motion capture
tour de force), and so going through the journey with him is an absolute thrill.
While far from record-breaking, the film still drummed up a tidy $54.8 million, which makes
the $36 million
The Smurfs were squabbling over last week seem beyond
trivial and should insure at least one more trip to the
Planet of the Apes.
Speaking of last week, the two big films took a pretty hefty nosedive -
The Smurfs
didn't suffer quite as much, falling 42% and winding up in second place with $20.7 million,
but the misjudged
Cowboys & Aliens dropped a whopping 56.8%, leaving it in third
place with just $15.7 million.
Faring even worse was last week's other sole big new release, Universal's raunchy body
swapping comedy
The Change-Up, which netted a paltry $13.5 million (just a few hundred thousand more
than
Captain America, which has been out for almost a month now). Maybe the R-
rated comedy threshold has finally been reached, or maybe, like most critics, audiences
simply didn't find it very funny. God knows I didn't.
Trading on strong word of mouth, the underrated and surprisingly under-seen
Crazy, Stupid, Love., had
the lowest drop off from last week out of any movie in the top ten, down just 37% with $12
million, which was still enough to bump it down to seventh place. Maybe people will keep
telling their friends and it can crawl back up, especially with the uninspiring slate of movies
coming out in the next few weeks (although, admittedly,
30 Minutes or Less is a lot
of fun).
In just a few short weeks we won't be able to talk about all of these horrible studio
blockbusters and the actual (gasp) prestige movies will be making their way to cinemas,
cresting on festival buzz from places like Toronto, Telluride and New York. Ah, it's time to get
excited about loving movies again!
- #1 - Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Fox) - $54.8 million
- #2 - The Smurfs (Sony) - $20.7 million
- #3 - Cowboys & Aliens (Universal) - $15.7 million
- #4 - The Change-Up (Universal) - $13.5 million
- #5 - Captain America: The First Avenger - $13 million
- #6 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (Warner Bros) - $12.4 million
- #7 - Crazy, Stupid, Love. (Warner Bros) - $12 million
- #8 - Friends with Benefits (Sony) - $4.6 million
- #9 - Horrible Bosses (Warner Bros) - $4.5 million
- #10 - Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Paramount) - $3 million