Marking the best opening weekend of Wood Harrelson’s career ZOMBIELAND killed last weekend with $25 million. Shot partially in my hometown of Newnan, Georgia, this flick made EI’s Jeff Marker laugh out loud. Marker said the film had “some of the wittiest jokes to appear in a horror movie since SHAUN OF THE DEAD.” With other reviews being extremely favorable, look for ZOMBIELAND to live long at metroplexes in coming weeks.
Grabbing the R-rated crowd with their zombie laugher, Sony also captured a sizeable chunk of the family demographic with CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS. The food filled kiddie pic got closer to the $100 million mark by placing second in its third week in release. MEATBALL’s take was enough to best Disney’s 3D double feature of TOY STORY and TOY STORY 2. Still, having already made a mountain of cash from the first two stories, this special limited outing in 3 dimensions, will only whet audience appetites for next year’s third installment in the storied franchise.
Surprising was the failure of the Drew Barrymore directed roller derby film, WHIP IT, which came in with just shy of $5 million landing the new release in 6th place. Starring JUNO’s Ellen Page, the failure of WHIP IT commercially on the heels of the dismal performance of JENNIFER’S BODY, should have studios scratching their heads. While WHIP IT was a far superior film to the clever early but derivative late BODY, both films were clearly aimed at a young female demographic. And given the competition, I seriously doubt that distributor Fox was expecting an enormous take. But less than $5 million? Look for WHIP IT to cower quickly in the face of the Vince Vaughn comedy COUPLES RETREAT opening this week against the likely continued undead domination of ZOMBIELAND.
My pick as last week’s pleasant surprise PANDORUM dropped completely out of the top ten in its second week of release, and the Bruce Willis sci-fi borer SURROGATES rang up at number 5 falling significantly in its week two.
Looks like I’ve got to take in the little-horror-movie-that-could PARANORMAL ACTIVITY which continued selling out midnight screenings last weekend. The midnight gimmick has paid off. ACTIVITY has scared up more than half a million from a small number of these unique late night/early morning screenings. Everyone will be permitted to see PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, even in the sunshine, starting this Friday, so, we’ll see if the scares continue.
