Weekend Box Office: Moviegoers so starved for drama they pay for a Lee Daniels movie
Anyone seeking a sign that blockbuster season is just about over—and that America may be happy to see it go—could find one in this weekend's box office numbers, which saw a stodgy, very autumn-friendly civil-rights drama trouncing the summer's final superhero movie. Lee Daniels' The Butler came in first place with about $25 million, proving that audiences either don't know or don't care that the titular director's last film was The Paperboy. After four months of basically nothing but popcorn movies, people were ready for an honest-to-God adult drama—maybe any drama, even one featuring John Cusack as Richard Nixon. Furthermore, someone forgot to inform the producers of Kick-Ass 2 that the season's cape-and-cowl quota has evidently been filled: The poorly-received sequel made just $13.5 million, a bit less than the 2010 original's $19.8 million opening and below what many box-office gurus were expecting it to gross. That the movie also landed in fourth place, behind last week's winners We're The Millers ($17.7 million) and Elysium ($13.5 million), is insult to bone-crunching injury. Did Jim Carrey's campaign of silence do its trick? Or are the nation's comic-book fans saving their money for the Thor sequel in November?