Weekend Box-Office: April 23-25, 2010

WEEKEND BOX-OFFICE

Dragon
returns to the #1 spot?!

Another oddity this weekend as HOW TO TRAIN YOUR
DRAGON, the film that we all thought had fallen from #1 a few
weeks ago only to regain the #1 spot last weekend (it hadn’t —
turns out that KICK-ASS had barely
beat it to the #1 spot), has now officially returned
back to the #1 spot in its 5th week of release! And this time,
it’s for real! The animated movie is now closing in on the $200M
mark, and isn’t showing any signs of stopping. KICK-ASS, on the
other hand, dropped down to 5th place in its second weekend of
release, and lost about 50% of its audience from last week, which
is pretty standard for most genre flicks, but was also the biggest
drop of any movie in the top 10.

The new film that managed the best opening this
weekend was J-Lo’s return to romantic comedies (and movies in
general — her last "big film" was MONSTER-IN-LAW back
in 2005) entitled THE BACK-UP PLAN, a film that finished in 2nd
place only a couple of million bucks behind HOW TO TRAIN YOUR
DRAGON. The weekend’s other big new release, THE LOSERS, didn’t
fare as well with a 4th place opening, and only about $10M (mind
you, the film apparently only cost about $25M to produce).

The weekend’s one other "new release"
was Disney’s documentary OCEANS, a follow-up to their big hit
EARTH from 2007. Despite opening in only 1,200 theaters, the film
managed a decent 8th place showing, with an per-theater-average
above any other film in the top 10 this week. The 3 movies to get
kicked out of the top 10 this week include HOT TUB TIME MACHINE
($46M), WHY DID I GET MARRIED TOO ($57M) and THE BOUNTY HUNTER
($63M).

Next week sees the release of two new films,
including one of the most anticipated horror movies of the year, A
NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, as well as something called FURRY
VENGEANCE, a film that I hadn’t heard of until about 3 minutes
ago. It stars Brendan Fraser, Brooke Shields (?!?!) and…furry
critters. Yipes. How the mighty have fallen. More importantly
though, what May movie are you guys looking forward to the most?
(other than IRON MAN 2, of course) VOTE
HERE!!!

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