Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Valentine's Day loved up at US box office
The romcom capitalised on its 14 February weekend opening to steal the hearts, and cash, of North American cinemagoers, but the real success story was Bollywood's My Name Is Khan
The winner
Warner Bros' romantic comedy Valentine's Day stormed to the top of the charts on a saccharine wave of support from audiences who clearly needed a break from tall blue aliens and protracted battle sequences. The studio's executives probably thought that if they crammed the screen with the likes of Jennifer Garner, Ashton Kutcher, Julia Roberts, Bradley Cooper, Jessicas Biel and Alba and the like, then the crowds would respond. They were right. With the Presidents' Day bank holiday falling today, the film is set to take a further significant bite out of the box office and will be well on its way towards reaching $100m (£63.7m) within three weeks or so. It has already made a $30m dent in the international box office, which will play a big part in its success.
Fox executives have been on tenterhooks about Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, waiting to see whether the children's adventure could show signs of becoming a franchise. The wait may not be over yet, but the decent $31.1m debut, allied to the $28m opening weekend in certain international markets, will calm the nerves a little.
Universal's effects-heavy horror tale The Wolfman, starring a hirsute Benicio Del Toro alongside Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt, opened well enough in third place on $30.6m and may well overtake Percy Jackson by the end of the four-day Presidents' Day weekend. It was a solid launch for a movie that has been in the works for a long time and could so easily have fizzled out, whiffing of yesterday's news.
Fox Searchlight opened the Bollywood romance My Name Is Khan – it stars Shahrukh Khan, arguably the most famous actor on the planet given his revered status in India. It ranked 13th on $1.9m from 120 cinemas for an excellent $15,500 per-cinema average.
The loser
A further 33% drop for the Mel Gibson thriller Edge of Darkness saw it tumble four places to eighth and a $36.1m running total after three weekends. Screen Gems' romance Dear John fell 50% and four places to fifth in the second weekend; however, a significant drop was to be expected given the arrival of the three big new titles and the $53.2m running total is solid. Lionsgate's action thriller From Paris With Love fell 42% and four places to seventh in the second weekend; its $15.9m tally will be of concern to the studio, although decent revenues are bound to follow on DVD as well as TV and VOD.
The real story
My Name Is Khan scored the biggest ever release at the US box office for a Bollywood film and demonstrates the huge crossover potential of Indian cinema. While the core Indian diaspora in the US was virtually guaranteed to turn out, the result suggests that My Name Is Khan could draw a wider audience. You only have to look at the ongoing success of 3 Idiots, the biggest Bollywood film in history on more than $64m globally, to see how Indian cinema can become an enduring force at the worldwide box office.
The future
Next weekend brings Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese's nightmarish mystery that received its world premiere at the Berlin film festival over the weekend and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)