If you release a movie in a forest of theaters and no one goes to see it, does it make a sound?
Not at the box office, apparently.
While two new movies—I, Frankenstein and Gimme Shelter—made their way to the Cineplex this past weekend, movie audiences yawned a collective yawn and left the box office’s Top Five almost completely unchanged.
Ride Along, the buddy-cop comedy starring Kevin Hart and Ice Cube, lost nearly 50% of its opening-week audience, but it still buckled in an estimated $21.2 million for a repeat joyride to the top. War flick Lone Survivor also held its spot—this one at No. 2—collecting another $12.6 million. It barely beat out The Nut Job, the bushy-tailed animated rollick that squirreled away another $12.3 million for this cold, cold winter. That was more than enough to secure itself third place for the second straight week.
The chart’s only real movement came in the fourth and fifth slots, with Frozen and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit switching places. Disney’s animated charmer added $9 million more to its icy coffers, bringing its total cume to around $347.8 million. The frosty animated tale has now spent 10 weeks in the Top 5—practically an eternal winter in the fickle world of entertainment. And the folks at Disney are hoping the sturdy show has a few more snow flurries in it yet. Shadow Recruit, meanwhile, has already slunk into the cinematic shadows, earning just $8.8 million to close out the Top 5.
The best-performing new release, I, Frankenstein, should’ve been perhaps named Ay-Yi-Yi Frankenstein, given its ludicrous plot, monstrous reviews and terrifying performance. This reimagining of the Frankenstein story—a crazy sequel of sorts to Mary Shelley’s novel featuring demons and gargoyles and a very grim Aaron Eckhart—earned just $8.3 million. It seems that this Frankenflick will suffer the same sort of awful fate as the original movie monster (though admittedly not in a burning windmill).
But Gimme Shelter, a Christian-tinged drama, performed even worse. Though released in fewer than 400 theaters (compared to Frankenstein’s nearly 2,800), Shelter found precious little of that, collecting just $721,000 to finish 22nd in the week’s dollar derby. Personally, I thought it deserved a better fate.
Final figures update: 1. Ride Along, $21.3 million; 2. Lone Survivor, $12.9 million; 3. The Nut Job, 12.1 million; 4. Frozen, $9.1 million; 5. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, $9.1 million.
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