Box Office: The Rock Takes Down Watchmen
Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on March 15, 2009
Well, finally a weekend comes along here at the Reject Report where my predictions look semi-intelligent. Race to Witch Mountain, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, raced to Number One with a haul of $25 million — pretty much in the ballpark of what most people thought it would get.
Let’s face it — it was a family movie and The Rock was in it. No wonder it made $25 million.
This weekend was also the swift end for Watchmen, as it went down all the way to $18 million — a 67 percent drop. Yikes!
Let’s face it, though, there’s not much surprise out there that this happened. Given the divided reaction people have had to the movie, with people either liking or loathing it, I don’t think people are that surprised that the drop was so steep. Watchmen definitely appears to be a movie that appeals to a cult audience — but that’s about it. Most people just don’t get it, it seems.
The remake of The Last House on the Left hauled in $14.6 million, which is a bit disappointing considering that a lot of other horror movies opened up this year to $20 million. Of course Friday the 13th opened to $40 million, and this one fell way short of that.
Also — as predicted, the sexed-up comedy Miss March qualifies as this week’s Biggest Flop Ever, as it only made $2.3 million for a pathetic tenth-place finish. Even Sex Drive did better than this, and it only opened to $3.6 million. Sex Drive was also a better movie, though – Miss March has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 5 percent!! So no wonder so many people decided to give it a miss.
Overall, though, it wasn’t a very exciting weekend at the theaters for most movie fans at all. A really boring weekend, in fact, with all these retreads and stale ideas rolled out. The box office numbers reflect this:
- Race to Witch Mountain $25,000,000
- Watchmen $18,070,000
- The Last House on the Left (2009) $14,658,000
- Taken $6,650,000
- Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail $5,130,000
- Slumdog Millionaire $5,025,000
- Paul Blart: Mall Cop $3,100,000
- He’s Just Not That Into You $2,905,000
- Coraline $2,655,000
- Miss March $2,350,000
Well, what do you expect — it’s March, after all. Better luck next weekend, I guess.
That’s pretty much all I have to say about the box office this week. Back for more predictions later this week at the Reject Report.
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