Not a blockbuster weekend for the box office, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something newsworthy to report. The Hunger Games has held on to the number one spot for the fourth week in a row, making it the first movie since Avatar to accomplish such a feat. Let’s also not underscore the significance of this movie having a female lead and two “male-centric” competitors in The Three Stooges and The Cabin in the Woods. And while a male audience carried the latter to third place, I can tell you right now that Joss Whedon fans of either gender are flipping out about it. Including two thirds of this blog’s writing staff. Seriously, we might need a support group. Or a sit-down conversation. By the way, Battleship opened this weekend. Isn’t that crazy?
Last week, The Hunger Games achieved another major box office milestone by passing the $300 million mark (bringing in another $21.5 million this weekend), and it’s now estimated to make over $370 million once it’s completed its run. All this, led by a teenage girl with a bow and arrow. The female-centric nature of this huge success has not gone unnoticed.
And against whom was this brand new blockbuster competing? The Farrelly brothers released their Three Stooges movie, which came in second ($17.1 million), though the reviews have been pretty mixed-to-negative, depending on who you ask. But it was The Cabin in the Woods that probably was the winner of the buzz contest this weekend, bringing in $14.9 million. This is certainly not a huge opening for a horror movie, but think about this: the marketing for this movie didn’t really allow for all that many plot details to be revealed, and that could have turned people off if they thought this was a straight-up horror movie about young people heading to a scary cabin in the woods. Been there, done that — unless you kept reading snippets of people’s reactions and the seemingly widespread vow by reviewers to kindly leave out the major, spoilery details. And there were plenty of those.
Honestly, the movie they are advertising is not even close to the story of The Cabin in the Woods. This movie is pretty unbelievable. In a good way. No — in a great way. If you see it, you will 1. not believe it collected dust for nearly three years, and 2. you will become even more excited to see The Avengers because it all came out of Joss Whedon’s amazing brain.
But are we still really happy to see The Hunger Games doing so well? Of course! You keep going on with your bad self, Hunger Games. We just hope you make a good decision regarding your next director.
And oh yeah — Battleship came out this weekend. No, really, it opened in foreign markets and made $58 million this weekend. It opens in the U.S. on May 18, when it will try to take money away from The Avengers and Men in Black 3, which is adorable.
(via The Hollywood Reporter, Box Office Mojo)
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