I don't know if it says more about the quality of
The Help or the general lousiness of
the crop of new movies this weekend, but in its second weekend in wide release a movie
actually rose to the top of the box office. How often does that happen? (Answer: rarely.)
Last weekend (sorry little monsters, I was on vacation and unable to provide rock solid box
office analysis),
The Help
debuted to a surprisingly strong number two finish, just behind
Rise of the Planet of
the Apes> (another film that took a lot of people by surprise).
The Help,
with its modest budget, strong (but far from movie star) cast, period setting, and socially
conscious center, doesn't exactly scream "smash hit," but it's a good little movie and people
are responding as such. This weekend it racked up another $20 million, enough to secure a
spot at the top of the box office (it's already made $71.5 million – not too shabby).
Of course this meant that the militant apes got knocked down to the #2 spot, although
Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which is really terrific (if you haven't seen it – get out
there!), still managed to scare up $17 million. With a new cumulative box office of $134.4
million, I'm sure there will be at least one more trip to the
Planet of the Apes.
The new movies though? Well, they didn't fare so well.
Spy
Kids: All the Time in the World (aka
Spy Kids 4D - you know, because of
the smell-o-vision), the latest in the string of successful family films from multi hyphenate
Robert Rodriguez, was the strongest debut of the new crop of films. It made $11.5 million
over the weekend, which was enough to secure its spot at #3. With schools starting this
week in many parts of the country, though, it'll be interesting to see if it can keep the
momentum up, or if this will be its one weekend of (moderate) success.
Up next, at #4, was Millennium/Nu Image's
Conan the Barbarian remake, which was truly abominable
(for a 3D movie, only about 25% of its scenes were projected in 3D) – witless, redundant,
and ugly. The American public agreed, and it only managed to muscle $10.5 million in ticket
sales. Conan must be crying himself to sleep on his pillowy biceps. Poor barbarian.
At the #5 spot with only $8.8 million was Disney and DreamWorks'
Fright Night remake, easily my
favorite movie of the new batch that opened this weekend. It was smart, scary, funny, and
genuinely suspenseful… so of course no one showed up. Honestly, though, I think strong
word of mouth could carry this through a few more weekends of moderate success, and I'm
positive it'll enjoy a long and fruitful life on home video (including Blu-ray!) Seriously, though,
if you want to see a really fun horror movie – go see
Fright Night!
The last big movie to open this weekend, although it did so on considerably fewer screens
(
The Help, which has the second smallest screen count in the top 10, still bests it by
971 screens) -
One Day
, the high concept romantic drama starring Jim Sturgess and Anne "Please Stop Asking
Me About Catwoman" Hathaway, debuted way down at #9, with $5 million. Maybe it'll make
its money back… one day.
- #1 - The Help (DreamWorks/Disney) - $20 million
- #2 - Rise of the Planet of the Apes(Fox) - $17 million
- #3 - Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (Dimension/Weinstein Co) - $11.5
million
- #4 - Conan the Barbarian (Nu Image/Millennium/Lionsgate) - $10.5 million
- #5 - Fright Night (DreamWorks/Disney) - $8.3 million
- #6 - The Smurfs (Sony) - $8 million
- #7 - Final Destination 5 (Warner Bros) - $7.7 million
- #8 - 30 Minutes or Less (Sony) - $6.3 million
- #9 - One Day (Focus) - $5.1 million
- #10 - Crazy Stupid Love (Warner Bros) - $4.9 million