Weekend Wrap-Up for April 20-22, 2007
Sleepy Box Office Waits for Spider-Man
By John Hamann
April 22, 2007
Landing in third is Blades of Glory, the other strong release in the top three from Paramount and DreamWorks. Blades of Glory is having a decent run for Will Ferrell and Jon Heder. The comedy earned $7.8 million and was off 44% from the previous frame. The better news is that Blades crossed the $100 million mark this weekend, and still has at least another $25 million still in the gas tank. This is now Will Ferrell's second $100 million plus earner in less than a year, after Talladega Nights earned $148 million last summer. Blades of Glory has already handily beaten Anchorman, which earned $84 million, by managing to keep the weekend to weekend drops below 40%, where Anchorman averaged a 50% drop over four consecutive weekends. The total for the $60 million Blades of Glory now sits at $101.1 million, has made Jon Heder even more of a household name, and has turned a figure skating movie into a lucrative hit for Paramount and DreamWorks.
Fourth spot goes to another new thriller, Vacancy, starring BOP faves Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale. Vacancy couldn't draw the usual horror crowd this weekend, and ends the weekend with a not-so-great first weekend tally of $7.6 million. Released to 2,661 venues, this thriller (our third in the top four films of the weekend) had a venue average of $2,979. From Screen Gems, Vacancy didn't play well with critics, but is doing okay with audiences. At RottenTomatoes, 67 reviewers voted, and 35 of those liked it, leaving it with a rating of 52%. Audiences at the site liked it much more, with 93% giving a thumbs up at the time of this writing. I don't think there's anything too remarkable here, and Vacancy will be vacant in a few weekends.
Moving from third to fifth is Disney's animated Meet The Robinsons. Now in its fourth weekend, The Robinsons earned $7.1 million, and was off a larger-than-expected 43%. Meet the Robinsons has been an okay release for Disney, but certainly is not burning anything up out there. Currently it sits with $82.2 million and will have to work hard to reach $100 million, although Shrek the Third is still many weekends away.
Our next new release of the weekend (our ninth new release in two weekends) is Hot Fuzz, the cop comedy from the group who did Shaun of the Dead. Hot Fuzz got out of the gate quite strongly despite its weekend take and ranking. Hot Fuzz earned $5.8 million this weekend, but did it from only 825 venues. That gives the comedy a venue average of $7,079, by far the best in the top ten. Hot Fuzz is one of the few films in the top ten this weekend worthy of being excited about. From Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright, Hot Fuzz scored with critics, earning a powerful 88% fresh rating at RottenTomatoes. 139 critics weighed in, and an astounding 123 found something to laugh at. Users, with a much larger sample than that of Vacancy or Fracture, really liked Hot Fuzz. Of the 129 users who reviewed the film for RT, only seven didn't like it, giving it a user rating of 94%. Shaun of the Dead earned only $13 million in North America during its theatrical run, but was huge on DVD, and created a large following for director Wright and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Hot Fuzz has already earned $48 million internationally, and if word catches on, it could be a big hit stateside as well.
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