It wasn’t a huge weekend for the movie theatre, with many people too focused on the Academy Awards to think about attending a movie. The studios are also holding back their biggest spring releases until mid-March, which led to an overall light weekend to finish off a disappointing month.
The one bright spot in all of this was ‘Identity Thief’ returning to the top of the chart with a $14 million weekend. The movie has been a runaway hit for Melissa McCarthy and looks like it will be the first solid hit in several years for Jason Bateman, possibly matching his last big comedy ‘Horrible Bosses’ (which ended above the $117 million mark).
The Dwayne Johnson action flick ‘Snitch’ debuted in second place with a soft $13 million. That’s not bad given that recent tough guy flicks like ‘Parker’ and even ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’ have been flopping overall. It’s also much better than the week’s other new release, ‘Dark Skies’, which stumbled into sixth place with a disappointing $8.9 million and garnered a terrible “C+” on CinemaScore.
‘Escape From Planet Earth’ moved up one spot on the chart to land in third place, earning $11 million. That’s only a 30.7% drop from opening weekend and so far the movie has gross over $35 million toward its $40 million budget, making it one of February’s few surprise hits.
‘Safe Haven’ dropped 50.5% on its second weekend, earning just $10.6 million. Even so, the film will likely end above the $60 million mark, which puts it in the company of previous Nicholas Sparks films like ‘The Lucky One’.
The worst numbers of the week came from last week’s number one film, ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’, which plummeted 59.7% to land in fifth place with just $10 million. So far the film has not been a hit domestically, grossing just under $52 million at the box office; but overseas it has so far pulled in over $132 million, which means it will likely end up being a financial win for Fox overall.
Sorry to hear that Identity Thief is doing so well
WOW.. how can that be & what does it say for our society if it’s hitting these numbers..?