Weekend Box Office Report: March 21-23: Horton Tramples Madea

Weekend Top 10

To say Tyler Perry’s record at the box office is impressive
is a gross understatement.  The
man’s movies consistently defy expectations by grabbing the top spot despite
lower theatre counts.  Though the
$20 million gross for his latest, Meet the Browns, is on par with past hits, there was one elephant of an obstacle
stopping him from being crowned king of the jungle and his name is Horton.  Dropping off only 44%, thanks to most
kids and adults being off Easter Friday, Horton Hears a Who! managed a coup most cannot do by topping the Box
Office for more than just one week.

Two other new entries debuted in third and fourth place with
a scant difference of $500K separating them.  In third, Masayuki Ochiai’s Japanese horror remake, Shutter, took in a decent haul from a moderate theatre
count. Audience reaction has not been strong so this may be his first and last
foray into Hollywood.  Owen
Wilson’s return to cinemas received a tepid welcome.  This probably had a lot to do with lack of interest in the
film itself rather than a cold reaction to his personal troubles.  Any way you slice it, Drillbit
Taylor (which was co-written by Seth
Rogen) wasn’t sure whether it wanted the teens or the adults and ended up with
neither.

The Weinstein Company should be very happy with their tenth
place finish for Spanish export, La Misma Luna.  The film officially
opened on Wednesday to mild results but found its audience over the holiday
weekend for a promising per screen average of nearly $10K, second in the Top 10
to only Tyler Perry’s loyal following.  The Weinstein’s will continue to roll the film into more theatres in the
coming weeks, hoping the word of mouth will drive the total tally upward.  I don’t want burst anyone’s piñata but
the response has been pretty “suave”.  That might sound good but “suave” is Spanish for “mild.”

There were no other new entries in the marketplace, which
allowed for a number of limited releases to grow and reach wider
audiences.  Week upon week, the
Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language film, The Counterfeiters, makes notable headway.  An increase of 23% was enough to push the film into the Top
20 for the first time for a total gross of $1.9 million on less than 100
screens.  Meanwhile, Married
Life (+59%), Snow Angels (+108%), The Band’s Visit (+14%) and Paranoid Park (+33%) continue their healthy expansions.  Art house hopefuls, Sleepwalking (-18%) and Funny Games (-59%), are essentially finished after just two
weeks as they both saw their grosses dwindle as their theatre counts got
higher. 

NEXT WEEK: If they’ve read their cards correctly, the gang
at Columbia are hoping to beat the house with 21.  Their biggest
competition is yet another spoof comedy, Superhero Movie.  They
can spoof all they want but these faux heroes will never make the same kind of
money as the real deal.  Smaller
entries include Friends alumni, David Schwimmer’s first feature, Run,
Fatboy, Run and Kimberly Pierce’s first
film since the revelatory Boys Don’t Cry.