With no Superbowl to distract audiences this weekend, the U.S. box office was immensely strong, helped by a great second weekend for Liam Neeson’s Taken.
But more on that in a second – the no. 1 film this weekend was the ensemble rom-com, He’s Just Not That Into You, which pulled in a highly respectable estimated $27.5 million.
Ken Kwapis’ film, which boasted a cute trailer and an appealing all-star cast including Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifers Aniston and Connolly, and Justin Long, boasted a per-theatre average of $8,650, and with Valentine’s Day coming next weekend, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t continue to do strong business.
Speaking of strong business, Liam Neeson has a very particular set of skills: skills he has acquired over a very long period of time. Skills like punching people, and kicking people, and shooting people, and sometimes all three; skills that made the American public keep his sleeper hit, Taken, riding high this weekend.
The Luc Besson-produced thriller took in an estimated $20.9 million, falling an astonishing 17.9% from last weekend. Taken now has $53 million after just ten days, which means that there are lots and lots of people out there who want to see Liam Neeson kick all kinds of ass. And more power to their elbow, we say – bring on Darkman 4: The Return Of The Guy Who’s Not Arnold Vosloo.
Seriously, though (although we are half-serious), this is an astonishing result for a movie that many had written off. However, helped by excellent marketing, including a great trailer which made it look like a Bourne-esque movie, and great word-of-mouth has given Fox the sort of hit it can’t have been expecting, particularly given how its Besson stablemate, Transporter 3, underperformed last year. Does this mean that there’ll be a Taken 2? Watch this space.
There were three other new releases this weekend, with Henry Selick’s beguiling 3D stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline pulling in more viewers than you might expect, and rightly so. The wildly inventive fantasy pulled in an estimated $16.3 million. Around 70% of that figure came from Digital 3D screenings – and while the figure was below previous stop-motion outings like Aardman’s Chicken Run or Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, it’s still not to be sniffed at.
Which is more than can be said for The Pink Panther 2, the superfluous Steve Martin-starring sequel to, yes, The Pink Panther. Coming lukewarm on the heels of the 2006 original, it seemed that nobody particularly wanted to see Martin heap further indignities upon Inspector Jacques Clouseau; and the film pulled in a mere $12 million, much less than the $20.2 million that the original opened to.
The other big new release this weekend might have done better if audiences had got out and Pushed. And that’s the last lame gag we’ll make in relation to Paul McGuigan’s sci-fi actioner, Push, which push-pulled (ok, we lied) in just $10.2 million. It wasn’t helped by a lack of real stars (all due respect to Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning), and a muddled marketing campaign. Shame – as we liked what we saw at Comic-Con and Movie-Con last year.
In other news, Kevin James’ Paul Blart: Mall Cop posted a Taken-style drop of just 20.7%, and now has $97 million after just four weeks. It should cross the hundred million dollar mark by next weekend.
And, in terms of the Oscar contenders, Danny Boyle’s frontrunner, Slumdog Millionaire, dropped just 3% for a take of $7.4 million, giving it $77.4 million overall. Can it cross the magic nine figure mark? Much will depend on how it fares at the Oscars in two weeks’ time – given its success at the BAFTAs last night, it’s looking good.
Next weekend sees Valentine’s Day, so welcome the debut of the wonderful Isla Fisher as a leading lady in her own right with Confessions Of A Shopaholic, while Clive Owen and Naomi Watts go for the discerning date movie tag with the thriller, The International.
Oh, and it’s also a Friday the 13th, which means that the biggest wide release is… the remake of Friday The 13th, and the return of the machete-wielding, mask-wearing, homicidal maniac, Jason Voorhees. Expect that one to post the biggest opening in the franchise’s history – will it be number one? Liam Neeson and his skillset might have something to say about that…