This weekend at the box office, Warner Bros. fantasy epic Sucker Punch was beat up by 20th Century Fox’s family comedy Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules. Wimpy Kid finished first for the weekend with Sucker Punch taking second place. While Wimpy Kid performed fine, Sucker Punch’s opening weekend is a bit of a disappointment. Holdovers from last weekend, Limitless from Relativity Media andLionsgate’s The Lincoln Lawyer performed very well in their second weekends, falling 20% and 17% respectively.
Overall the top 10 generated an estimated $105.2 million, down 6.9% from 2010 when Dreamworks How to Train Your Dragon soared to the top of the chartsand pushed the overall top 10 to $113 million. This was a far better result for the weekend than I had anticipated due to holdovers Limitless, The Lincoln Lawyer and Universal’s The Adjustment Bureau having better holds from last weekend than expected.
Family comedy sequel Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules was able to top the first films opening weekend by a slight margin, collecting $24.4 million which was more than enough to beat out Sucker Punch for first place. Based on the best-selling book series, audiences embraced the sequel and it will likely match the original’s final gross of $64 million.
There is some competition headed in Wimpy Kid’s direction over the next few weeks, so the film will have a difficult time out-grossing its predecessor. This Friday, Universal release its Easter Bunny movie, Hop and I expect this film to perform very well. Shortly after, Wimpy Kid will have to deal with competition from its own distributor as 20th Century Fox releases animated adventure film Rio. Look for Wimpy Kid to be in for a substantial drop this weekend, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50%, but the film should strengthen in the weeks to follow as more and more kids are off from school for spring vacation.
Visionary director Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch failed to knock out the competition this weekend, coming in second place with $19 million. The budget for the film has been reported at anywhere from $85-$100 million making Sucker Punch dead on arrival. The film has no chance of being profitable and will likely lose millions of dollars for Warner Bros. The reviews for the film have been terrible and word of mouth will be just as bad. Having seen the film myself, I have to agree with most critics. In fact, it may be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. The film has no story or narrative cohesion and as visually exciting as some of the action sequences are, they fall flat because you have no interest in the underdeveloped characters.
Warner Bros. executives who recently rewarded Snyder with the directing gig for the next Superman film have to be quaking in their boots right now. As visually astounding as his films are, Snyder is not a great storyteller, and this could be a problem for Superman. More than likely Warner Bros. will stay the course and keep Snyder on the project in hopes that the director will be able to translate a strong screenplay to the screen. Sucker Punch has little chance of displaying strong legs and will likely tumble 65% or more this weekend.
To see how the rest of the top 10 performed, check out the chart below.
Debuting titles are in red.
|
RANK
|
TITLE
|
MARCH 25-27
|
MARCH 18-20
|
% CHANGE
|
# OF THEATRES/
AVERAGE
|
# OF WEEKS
|
TOTAL
|
BILL SAID
|
|
1
|
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
20th Century Fox
|
$24.4M
|
New
|
New
|
3167
$7.7K per screen
|
1
|
$24.4M
|
$22.0M
|
|
2
|
Sucker Punch
Warner Bros.
|
$19.0M
|
New
|
New
|
3033
$6.3K per screen
|
1
|
$19.0M
|
$20.0M
|
|
3
|
Limitless
Relativity Media
|
$15.2M
|
$18.9M
|
-20%
|
2805
$5.4K per screen
|
2
|
$41.3M
|
$10.8M
-43%
|
|
4
|
The Lincoln Lawyer
Lionsgate
|
$11.0M
|
$13.2M
|
-17%
|
2707
$4.1K per screen
|
2
|
$29.0M
|
$9.5M
-28%
|
|
5
|
Rango
Paramount
|
$9.8M
|
$15.1M
|
-35%
|
3645
$2.7K per screen
|
4
|
$106.4M
|
$8.8M
-42%
|
|
6
|
Battle: Los Angeles
Sony
|
$7.6M
|
$14.5M
|
-48%
|
3118
$2.4K per screen
|
3
|
$72.6M
|
$6.2M
-57%
|
|
7
|
Paul
Universal
|
$7.5M
|
$13.0M
|
-43%
|
2806
$2.7K per screen
|
2
|
$24.6M
|
$7.3M
-44%
|
|
8
|
Red Riding Hood
Warner Bros.
|
$4.3M
|
$7.2M
|
-40%
|
2715
$1.6K per screen
|
3
|
$32.5M
|
$3.8M
-47%
|
|
9
|
The Adjustment Bureau
Universal
|
$4.2M
|
$5.8M
|
-27%
|
2282
$1.9K per screen
|
4
|
$54.9M
|
$3.2M
-45%
|
|
10
|
Mars Needs Moms!
Disney
|
$2.2M
|
$5.3M
|
-59%
|
2170
$1.0K per screen
|
3
|
$19.2M
|
$3.1M
-42%
|
TOTAL $105.2M