“Fee! Fi! Fo! Fums! Brothers Warner could use a Tums!”
That’s what I imagine the studio’s bevy of giants are chanting right about now, their growly poetry reverberating in Warner Bros. back lots.
Oh, the studio’s PG-13 fairy tale, Jack the Giant Slayer, did manage to win the weekend box office tourney. It did muster an estimated 28 million beans.
But making a movie staffed with giants is, by definition, no small undertaking. It’s not easy keeping a cast loaded with 30-foot-tall actors happy—not with all of them demanding their own dressing trailers and all. And just think of the catering costs! Warner allegedly spent around $200 million to bring Jack the Giant Slayer to the big sceen—which means the studio needs to rake in magical beanstalk-like stacks of money to break even. So while the movie still has several weeks left in its run, I doubt its final grosses will be particularly titanic.
Experts are betting that Jack will be a bomb on the level of last year’s much-maligned John Carter. The moral? Never, ever include a proper name beginning with “J” in a movie title.
All those giants can only look down with envy at Identity Thief. With its $9.7 million take this weekend, the R-rated comedy finished second and officially became the first movie released in 2013 to break $100 million during its domestic run. Its total gross stands now at $107.4 million, and it’ll likely steal more before it’s done.
Still, while Jack might’ve suffered a scrawny debut, it can take solace that it performed way better than the weekend’s other major releases.
21 & Over, the raunchy, alcohol-soaked R-rated comedy, made just $9 million—less than half of what the similarly themed Project X debuted with last year. And The Last Exorcism Part II (which I think should’ve been titled The Last Last Exorcism) made just $8 million. Frankly, Exorcism’s box office take was scarier than anything in the actual movie.
And what about Phantom, the fourth major release this week? Box Office Mojo isn’t even reporting figures for the flick yet, but Exhibitor Relations believes the submarine movie truly sank, earning just $465,000. That’d make its opening one of the worst in cinematic history (though still not The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure bad: That made just $443,000, and on nearly twice as many screens).
Snitch rounds out the Top 5 with $7.7 million.
Final Figures update: 1. Jack the Giant Slayer, $27.2 million; 2. Identity Thief, $9.7 million; 3. 21 & Over, $8.8 million; 4. Snitch, $7.8 million; 5. The Last Exorcism Part II, $7.7 million.
Recent Comments