Weekend Box Office: Defying expectations

By Genevieve Koski  |  March 31, 2008 | 1:50pm
Aux Features Newswire

First the good news: Superhero Movie was NOT the highest-grossing film this weekend; after Meet The Spartans' No. 1 debut last year, we were a little concerned we might be the butt of some elaborate hoax on the part of the moviegoing public. The bad news: The film didn't perform poorly enough to prevent the next inevitable movie spoof from shitting its way into your local cineplex, landing at No. 3 with a $9.51 million take.

Outperforming industry expectations, 21 took the top spot this weekend, despite its gratuitous depiction of math geeks. Though it's received middling reviews, the Vegas drama starring Kevin Spacey managed to bump Horton Hears A Who! off its perch, besting the family flick's $17.4 million take with $23.7 million in box-office receipts. The weekend's other new releases fared far worse, with the Iraq soldier drama Stop-Loss just cracking the top 10 with $4.5 million (No. 8), and David Schwimmer's Run Fatboy Run generating a fraction of the interest it did in the U.K. (where it held the top spot for four weeks), debuting at No. 13 with a measly $2.4 million.

The rest of the top 10 posted numbers significantly down from last week, grossing an estimated $85.2 million combined, down 25 percent from last year's numbers for the same weekend.

More detailed numbers can be found at boxofficemojo.com.

 
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