Weekend Box Office (April 26 - 28, 2013)
THIS WEEKEND Two new R-rated films enter the North American box office in a last-ditch effort to swipe away some cash before Tony Stark steals away all the money.
Taking a sunny vacation from his Transformers film festival, director Michael Bay offers up a buddy action-comedy with Pain & Gain featuring the intriguing pairing of Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson, along with co-starring roles for all their muscles. The true story of Miami personal trainers caught up in a criminal enterprise they are not ready for packs some solid starpower as both leads can draw a crowd. The combo-pack will be extra appealing and their charisma and sex appeal will make this work with females and males alike. Slick marketing should work with older teens and young adults and weak reviews indicate that like most films dumped out at the end of April, this won't last too long at the box office. But competition is light right now for its target demo. Hitting up 3,277 theaters, Pain & Gain could open to around $20M this weekend.
The new comedy The Big Wedding packages a handful of Oscar winners with some young adult stars for an impressive cast that includes Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Robin Williams, Katherine Heigl, Amanda Seyfried, and Topher Grace. Wedding-themed pics are often popular, especially ones with major stars. However this Lionsgate offering is attracting negative reviews across the board that will certainly repel mature adults. Trailers are not funny enough to excite young women and the concept has been done before so many times. Opening in over 2,633 locations, The Big Wedding might debut to about $9M over three days.
Tom Cruise scored one of the biggest openings of his career last weekend with the sci-fi flick Oblivion. But buzz is lukewarm and films from this genre tend to draw interest upfront so a large decline is assured. A 55% drop would give Universal about $17M and a ten-day tally of $64M.
The baseball hit 42 may see sales slide by 30% to roughly $12M which would put Warner Bros. at an impressive $70M.
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Watch the NEW trailer for Thor: The Dark World.
LAST YEAR Holding the top spot for a second weekend, the battle-of-the-sexes comedy Think Like a Man grossed $17.6M pushing its ten-day total past $60M. Opening in second place was eventual Oscar nominee The Pirates! Band of Misfits with $11.1M. The Sony toon ended its run with $31.1M. Slipping a small amount was The Hunger Games with $10.8M in its sixth weekend followed closely by the $10.8M of The Lucky One from Warner Bros. Rounding out the top five was the romantic comedy The Five-Year Engagement with a mild $10.6M on its way to $28.8M for Universal.
This column is updated three times each week: Thursday (upcoming weekend's summary), Sunday (post-weekend analysis with estimates), and Monday night (actuals). Opinions expressed in this column are those solely of the author.
Last Updated: April 25, 2013 at 4:00PM ET
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