Newswire Weekend Box Office: Sparta seizes American wallets

by Scott Tobias March 12, 2007
Movies released in early spring usually have limited box-office potential, especially if they're R-rated, but 300, the bloody effects-driven adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel, enjoyed a phenomenal $70 million opening weekend, exceeding even the loftiest of expectations. In a rare one-two for gay-themed cinema, Wild Hogs took the second spot with $28 million and only dropped about 30% from its first weekend, showing unusual staying power for a movie that's so obviously terrible. Maybe Norbit director Brian Robbins was right when he said recently "the only films that get good reviews are the ones nobody sees." Certainly, that applies to Zodiac, which dropped like a stone in its second weekend to finish in fifth with $6.8 million.

In limited release, a couple of openings showed signs of life: While it won't break box-office records like it did in its native country, the South Korean monster movie The Host pulled in $320,000 on 71 screens, and Mira Nair's well-reviewed adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake did even better, pulling $251,000 on only 6 screens for a $41,833 per screen average—by far the week's best.

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