The box office results for the weekend of February 24th – 26th, also known as Oscar weekend, sees a cast of “nobody’s” rise above the Hollywood establishment. With a unique weapon and marketing campaign, Act Valor trounced holdovers and newbies alike. Here are the studio estimates:
1. Act of Valor ($24.7 million)
2. Good Deeds ($16 million)
3. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island ($13.4 million)
4. Safe House ($11.3 million)
5. The Vow ($10 million)
6. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance ($8.8 million)
7. This Means War ($8.5 million)
8. Wanderlust ($6.6 million)
9. Gone ($5 million)
10. The Secret World of Arrietty ($4.5 million)
Analysis by Joe Belcastro
Let’s start from the bottom and work our way up (insert sexual innuendo here)…
Maybe Summit Entertainment should have screened Gone for critics after all. It’s not like it could have gotten any worse right? Usually when a movie isn’t screened in advance, the studio is not confident in its product. But did they ever think that some, SOME, critics might get annoyed and just rip their respective flick a new one because they had to pay and rush to get this done? One would think that most critics have a professionalism about them that would forbid this from happening. However, it is something to think about studio folk. Especially when you bombed on opening weekend and your production budget alone is $28 million. Sorry Amanda Seyfried, but it seems you picked another poor project. The Flop Alert siren is sounding extremely loud here.
And we now come to Universal who has plenty of experience dealing with flops lately; therefore the piss-poor opening Wanderlust achieved shouldn’t shake their world up too much. With an attractive cast, the $35 million production budget should not have been a major worry. But, live and learn. Learn that you need to market better and learn that Jennifer Aniston needs more help than Paul Rudd to draw crowd these days. Great way to kick-off the studio’s 100th Anniversary.
Ready for the obligatory play on words? Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance has flamed out after dropping 64% from its opening weekend. And there it is. Domestically, the flick is up to $37 million but that production budget of $75 million is still looming hard.
Sleeper Hit: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. It has equaled its production budget stateside, grossing nearly $79 million and is well over $200 million worldwide. And since Warner Bros. is unleashing more ad campaigns, they must be using the black ink on this guy.
Tyler Perry’s latest, Good Deeds, had a fair opening. As noted, if “Madea” is not in the title, his opening weekends tend to dip by $5-$7 million. The production budget for this guy is unknown but as history shows, Perry’s flicks usually gets their audience to the theater within the first week and then it vanishes from the top ten rather quickly.
And arriving at the top, we see Act of Valor with a surprising victory this weekend. Its strategy with using real Navy SEALs instead of trained actors apparently will payoff despite negative reviews from the lovely critics. The production budget was in the $15-$18 million range so it looks like profits will be seized.
This Friday, we have a major 3D animation in Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax and another mock-documentary in the comedy Project X. Reviews will be right here my fellow Shockers!
