{"id":12323,"date":"2011-03-14T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2011-03-14T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/?p=12323"},"modified":"2017-09-01T09:21:52","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T16:21:52","slug":"boxoffice-mar-14-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/boxoffice-mar-14-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Box Office: ‘Battle’ Triumphs, ‘Mars’ Needs More Than Moms"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend’s box office was dominated by two movies that were, in the immortal words of Ricky Gervais, “utter shite.”<\/em> One was the talk of the town because it trumped everyone else at the box office, while the other one was the subject of discussion for an entirely different reason \u2013 because it’s a huge, huge, huge financial disaster.<\/p>\n

<\/h6>\n

On the “winning” side of things (to quote Mr. Sheen) is ‘Battle: Los Angeles<\/strong>‘, a movie that almost everyone hated but which still made $39 million, easily claiming the #1 spot. The tale of a militaristic alien invasion and the brave humans who defend our fair globe (led by the dimpled Aaron Eckhart) was boosted by a strong, atmospheric marketing campaign that somehow helped people tell it apart from ‘Skyline<\/a>‘ (yuck).<\/p>\n

At #2 was ‘Rango<\/a>‘ with another $23 million (down only 39% from last weekend). It’s good that this toon, which is way more out there and stylistically bold than the other animated film vying for the top spot, was able to hold its ground. I was worried that its weirdness would ultimately be its downfall. Fortunately, it’s holding tough.<\/p>\n

The #3 slot was secured by another new movie, the somewhat spooky ‘Red Riding Hood<\/strong>‘. It took $14.1 million to grandmother’s house. The movie is only so-so, but I thought that it might be a bigger hit, especially with the all-important ‘tween demographic. It looks like maybe it was too hard a sell. (Perhaps the period setting did it in?) If I was one of the half-dozen studios with active, fairy tale-influenced tent poles in the pipeline, I’d be a little concerned.<\/p>\n

‘The Adjustment Bureau<\/a>‘ hung in at #4 with another $12 million.<\/p>\n

At #5 was the huge, huge, impossibly huge bomb ‘Mars Needs Moms<\/strong>‘. Made for more than $150 million (before marketing costs are factored in), the 3D bore made a mere $6.8 million. Woof. There’s a reason Disney shuttered Robert Zemeckis’ motion capture laboratory. This is that reason.<\/p>\n

Finally, ‘Gnomeo & Juliet<\/strong>‘ looks like it’s about to finally bow out of the Top 10 after an unexpected winning streak. It brought in another $3.5 million to bring its total up to nearly $90 million.<\/p>\n

The Top 10:<\/h5>\n

01 ‘Battle: Los Angeles’ (Sony) – $39 million <\/p>\n

02 ‘Rango’ (Paramount) – $23 million<\/p>\n

03 ‘Red Riding Hood’ (Warner Bros) – $14.1 million<\/p>\n

04 ‘The Adjustment Bureau’ (Universal) – $12 million<\/p>\n

05 ‘Mars Needs Moms’ (Disney) – $6.8 million<\/p>\n

06 ‘Hall Pass’ (Warner Bros) – $5.1 million<\/p>\n

07 ‘Beastly’ (CBS Films\/Sony) – $5 million<\/p>\n

08 ‘Just Go With It’ (Sony) – $4 million<\/p>\n

09 ‘The King’s Speech’ (Weinstein Company) – $3.6 million<\/p>\n

10 ‘Gnomeo & Juliet’ (Disney) – $3.5 million<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend’s box office was dominated by two movies that were, in the immortal words of Ricky Gervais, “utter shite.” One was the talk of the town because it trumped everyone else at the box office, while the other one was the subject of discussion for an entirely different reason \u2013 because it’s a huge,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":12331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[743],"tags":[1322,2262,283,2417,178,2251,2420,2279,2419],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12323"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44464,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12323\/revisions\/44464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}