LOS ANGELES — A crop of four new diverse films
arrived in theaters this weekend, but audiences flocked to “Rise of the
Planet of the Apes,” which stood strong at the box office yet again.
After reigning over the competition last weekend, the
prequel to the 1968 movie about simians who overtake the Earth saw its
ticket sales drop a moderate 50 percent to $27.5 million, according to
an estimate from distributor 20th Century Fox. That sum raised the
picture’s domestic tally to $104.9 million after 10 days in theaters.
None of the new films that debuted this weekend saw
equally positive results, with the exception of “The Help,” an
adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling novel about civil rights
in 1960s Mississippi. The movie — which opened mid-week in an effort to
build buzz before the crowded weekend — collected $25.5 million between
Friday and Sunday, bringing its overall total to $35.4 million.
Meanwhile, “Final Destination 5,” the latest 3-D
installment in the popular horror franchise, grossed a decent $18.4
million. The dark R-rated comedy “30 Minutes or Less” came in with a
so-so $13 million, while “Glee: The 3-D Concert Movie” ended up with a
disappointing $5.7 million.
“The Help,” about a young white woman who writes a
book about the struggles of a group of African-American maids, resonated
most with older women. The crowd who showed up to the picture was 74
percent female, and 60 percent of the audience was older than 35. Those
who saw the film loved it, giving it a perfect average grade of A-plus,
according to market research firm CinemaScore. “The Help” is only the
second film this year to receive that score besides the inspirational
teen drama “Soul Surfer.”
The movie is already off to a strong start,
considering it was financed by Dreamworks SKG and Participant Media for
$25 million. The picture, which is being distributed by Walt Disney
Pictures, also seems to be resonating with a diverse audience. The local
theater in Jackson, Miss., where the story takes place, sold the
second-highest number of tickets to the film of any theater in the
country this weekend. The movie also did solid business in Memphis,
Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas.
Disney is hopeful that the movie might follow in the
footsteps of 2009’s “The Blind Side,” which was also based on a popular
book, dealt with race issues and ultimately went on to earn a best
picture nomination at the Academy Awards.
“Certainly we don’t want to get excited too soon, but
that movie had a great run, and we’re off to the kind of start that
could set us up for something parallel,” said Dave Hollis, the studio’s
executive vice president of distribution, referring to “The Blind
Side’s” worldwide box office tally of $309.2 million. “It played great
upscale, urban and in the heartland, so we’re hopeful that, with good
word-of-mouth, we’ll have a few months of really good box office.”
The fifth “Final Destination” movie, about teenagers
ever-attempting to cheat death, did not fare nearly as well as the last
entry in the scary series, “The Final Destination.” The fourth film in
the franchise started off with $27.4 million in 2009, fueled largely by
3-D ticket receipts. Filmgoers — albeit far fewer of them — were willing
to shell out a few extra bucks to see “Final Destination 5” in the
pricier format as well, with 75 percent of this weekend’s business
coming from 3-D.
But it remains to be seen whether the movie — whose
young male audience gave it an average grade of B-plus — will be able to
reach the $186.2 million worldwide total of “The Final Destination.”
Fortunately, because of its largely unknown cast and director, Warner
Bros.’ New Line Cinema label was able to ratchet down the budget on the
fifth picture nearly $10 million from the fourth film to around $40
million.
Of all the R-rated comedies to hit theaters this
summer, “30 Minutes or Less” had one of the lowest openings. The film’s
debut came in far below that of sleeper hits such as “Bridesmaids” and
“Horrible Bosses,” but the movie should still fare decently given its
modest budget. Media Rights Capital spent around $28 million to make the
movie, which Sony Pictures later acquired and is distributing
worldwide.
The film, starring Jesse Eisenberg as a pizza
delivery guy who is kidnapped, strapped with a ticking bomb and told to
rob a bank, was assigned an average grade of B by those who saw it. The
film proved to be most appealing to young men, as 58 percent of the
crowd was male and 69 percent was younger than 25.
As far as concert films go, “Glee” had a particularly
weak opening. The movie got off to an even worse start than “Jonas
Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience,” a 2009 film that ended up with a
dismal $23.2 million in global ticket sales. And the movie didn’t even
come close to replicating the first weekend performance of “Never Say
Never,” a 3-D concert film about young pop star Justin Bieber that
opened to $29.5 million in February and ultimately sold a total of $98.4
million in tickets worldwide.
The self-proclaimed “Gleeks” who saw the film — a 79
percent female crowd — loved it, giving it an average grade of A.
Unfortunately for Fox, not enough of them showed up to buy the more
expensive tickets to the movie, which is playing only in 3-D theaters
for a total of two weeks. Still, the studio spent only about $9 million
to produce the film, which shows “Glee” cast members performing musical
numbers from the Fox TV program during a recent concert tour.
“It’s not an episode of the television show,” said
Fox’s senior vice president of distribution, Chris Aronson. “Maybe the
word will get out that this is an extremely satisfying piece of
entertainment.”
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