Weekend Box Office Report: April 24-26: Unreasonable Obsession

OK, I get it.  You like Beyonce.  Her songs
are catchy; her body is rockin’.  She is an all around tour de force.  But really, does she really need to be a bankable movie star
too?  I don’t begrudge her every
possible success but couldn’t you throw you support behind her for something a
little less ridiculous than Obsessed?

Even though it was panned by critics universally, or perhaps
in spite of that, Obsessed pulled in over $28 million to become April’s biggest
opening for a thriller, beating out Disturbia, which pulled in over $22 million
back in its day.  This will mean
many more film offers for Beyonce, who clearly has a strong following that are
willing to cross over from downloading her music to dropping their money to
gaze upon her on the big screen.  As a result, another pretty face, Zac Efron, in 17 Again, was forced
down to second place with a 50% drop.

Many another film made its debut this week in the Top 10 but
none did so very strongly.  The
most successful of the bunch was the fight movie, appropriately titled, Fighting.  The film brought in the
second highest average in the Top 10 but was originally expected to fight it
out with Obsessed for the top spot.  Its third place finish is respectable but a disappointment.  Coming in right behind in fourth was
the delayed, The Soloist.  Joe
Wright (Atonement) directed this pedigree project, which stars Jamie Foxx and
Robert Downey Jr.  Good word of
mouth could save it but adult fare is not faring too well these days (just ask State of Play).  And after its
solid Earth Day debut, Disney’s Earth came in fifth place for the weekend.  Given that this is a repurposed
documentary that many have already seen in its other incarnation, the BBC
series, “Planet Earth”, I’d say its $14 million five-day take is definitely the
strongest showing of these selections.

Below the Top 10, the much buzzed about documentary about
boxer, Mike Tyson, again appropriately titled, Tyson, debuted on 11 screens to
the tune of an average just under $8K.  The film is being well received by critics and could play better to
wider audiences in the weeks to come given the popularity of the subject.  Meanwhile, the ensemble piece, The Informers, starring Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke, Billy Bob Thornton and Winona
Ryder (now, there are a bunch of misfits!) bombed its opening, pulling in a
pathetic average of just $622 on nearly 500 screens.  And the week’s best per screen average went to the
documentary, Nursery University.  The doc, which depicts the competitive world of nursery school
admissions, opened on just one screen in all of North America and pulled in an
average of $13K.  I guess it was
easier for parents interested in the topic to find a baby sitter for the night
than a good school.

NEXT WEEK: Let the unofficial launch of summer officially
begin with the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Opening of over 4000 screens, it will be very interesting to
see if that feature length leak from a month ago really has an effect or not on
the theatrical gross.  And if
bladed mutants are not your thing, perhaps laughable romantic comedies starring
Matthew McConaughey are.  Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, co-starring Jennifer Garner, opens on 3000+ screens.

Weekend Top 10