Weekend Box Office: Sophomore course in man-thinking sees smaller attendance

By Sean O'Neal  |  June 23, 2014 | 3:23pm
Aux Features Film

Continuing this month of secondary education, audiences filed into the sophomore-level Think Like A Man Too course, paying a $30 million tuition for blueberry-suited Socrates Steve Harvey’s next lesson in how to behave like complementary stereotypes and play basketball. That they instead learned that what happens in Vegas, remains largely identical to what other movies think happens in Vegas, could explain its being down $3.6 million from Think Like A Man: First Sequence. Though it’s also possible audiences were not as eager for reasons beside a lack of Steve Harvey’s nourishing wisdom: As Forbes speculates, it’s possible that those who flocked the original were responding to its being a black ensemble movie with no sign of Tyler Perry in a dress. These days, that market is much better served, to the point where they don’t have to rush to see something just because Kevin Hart is involved.

Meanwhile, elderly moviegoers rushed in relative terms to see Jersey Boys just because Clint Eastwood is involved, with 71 percent of its audience being 50 years of age or older. While Jersey Boys’ $13.5 million, fourth-place opening is lower than that of its fellow jukebox musical Rock Of Ages—possibly because Frankie Valli sings in a frequency his fans can no longer hear—it’s still the highest opening for a film that Eastwood directed but didn’t star in. And so, as the faithful to both Eastwood and the Four Seasons continue to line up in an orderly fashion for the limousine bus, so that no one gets left behind this time, Gladys, it could continue to be a solid, if appropriately pipsqueak performer.

In limited release, Paul Haggis’ latest emotional manipulation montage, Third Person was unable to fool anyone into thinking it was another sequel, and so it opened in five theaters with just $42,000—or approximately the squib budget for a single scene on Liam Neeson’s last movie. Roman Polanski’s Venus In Fur, about behind-the-scenes sexual power plays involving a director, took in $26,200 from two theaters full of people who know, yeah, they know, but they still want to see it.

Finally, Coherence’s mind-bending scenario in which Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Nicholas Brendon is the biggest star took in $17,000 in two theaters, while Jan Troell’s The Last Sentence also opened in two theaters with $9,000, drawing a modest audience to the story of a Swedish newspaper editor taking a moral stand against the Nazis. (Presumably everyone else is waiting for the sequel, Appendix.)

For more detailed numbers, visit Box Office Mojo.

 
Join the discussion...