The Grey gets the green!
A movie about people stranded in freezing weather may not seem like appealing escapism during the chilly month of January, but a chance to watch Liam Neeson battle voracious wolves in the Alaskan wilds was enough to propel THE GREY to the top this weekend with $20 million. Not quite the heights of Neeson's last couple of winter-released actioners (TAKEN - $24.7M, UNKNOWN - $21.9M) but still a solid opening, especially considering the moderate budget (around $25M).
Kate Beckinsale's leather-wrapped vampire was powerful enough to defeat Katherine Heigl, as UNDERWORLD: AWAKENINGS held second place with another $12.5M over ONE FOR THE MONEY's...
Underworld: Awakening kills the competition!
Kate Beckinsale was back in body-hugging leather this weekend, and she was packing enough ammo to slaughter all comers as UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING opened at the top of the box office. The fourth in the vampires-vs.-werewolves franchise returned Selene to the screen (in 3D) and took in $25.4 million, proving there's still plenty of life in the undead.
As with the bloodsucker battle in the #1 spot, critics also weren't kind to the George Lucas-produced RED TAILS, but the WWII action movie still performed better than expected with a $19.1 million opening. The tale of the Tuskegee Airmen also scored high marks from the paying...
Contraband grabs your dough!
This weekend's craving was clearly more for action than animation, and Mark Wahlberg was armed and ready for it -- his R-rated bullet-riddled thriller CONTRABAND took the top with $24.1 million in its first weekend. As the first action release of 2012, the remake of the Icelandic movie REYKJAVIK-ROTTERDAM (which starred and was produced by CONTRABAND director Baltasar Kormakur) was there to satisfy the gunfight appetite of audiences.
The 3D re-release of Disney's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST danced into second with $18.4 million, quite a ways below last September's $30M opening for THE LION KING's 3D reissue. Perhaps parents are tired of...
The Devil Inside frightens off Tom Cruise
Shocker! The only new release of the weekend, the low-budget demonic possession faux documentary THE DEVIL INSIDE, scared up more than twice of what was expected: a whopping $34.5 million, one of the biggest January openings ever! Only CLOVERFIELD and the 1997 reissue of STAR WARS scored more bucks.
It was obviously more due to curiosity and the hopes of cheap thrills than the movie's quality, however -- the horror genre tends to be critic-proof, but there were reports of audiences actually booing the movie and giving it an 'F' Cinemascore grade when departing. Either way, it was a considerable return on Paramount's meager...
Weekend Box-Office: December 30, 2011-January 1, 2012
Mission still being accepted
The New Year's holiday didn't take quite as big a chomp as the Christmas weekend did on the box office, and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL once again reigned supreme at theaters with another $31.2M (over last weekend's $29.5M 3-day take). The high-speed, building-crawling action flick has brought in $134M so far -- already more than M:I3's domestic total -- plus another $190M overseas. Seems like Tom is back on top. Maybe by the time his next impossible mission unfolds, we'll have a lot more IMAX theaters to see it...
No big shakeups on the rest of the chart, and thing fell in fairly close to what I expected (for once)....
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