By Chris Kavan - 03/14/11 at 12:34 AM CT
It was a win-lose for sci-fi at the box office over the weekend. On the winning side of the coin, the Black Hawk Down-Meets-Independence Day film Battle: Los Angeles opened in the top spot, with a $36 million opening. While it was the second-largest opening of the year (behind Rango), the total box office was still down compared to last year.
Not helping things was the losing side of the sci-fi coin as the animated Mars Needs Moms was a major flop, opening in 5th with just $6.8 million. With an estimated cost of $150 million, and faring worse than the openings of Planet 51 and Space Chimps, I expect some heads to roll. Considering how crowded the market was already, it was a risky move and the advertising didn't help the cause.
Rango kept its composure, holding onto the 2nd spot and taking in another $23.1 million and dropping about 40%. It now stands at $68.7 million and should easily cross the $100 million mark before it's done.
In 3rd place was another newcomer to the party, the re-imagined Red Riding Hood, which took in $14.1 million - not surprisingly from a largely female audience. It may have drawn comparisons to Twilight, but it couldn't approach that success, though it did do slightly better than last week's Beastly.
Holding up strong in 4th was The Adjustment Bureau, down 46% and taking in $11.5 million for a $38..5 million total. While Beastly also dropped 48% to land in 7th with $5 million the movie has already made back its $17 million budget.
While it had held up well in recent weeks, it looks like the Oscar glow is finally wearing off for The King's Speech, which fell 42% to land in 9th place with $3.2 million. Still, at an impressive $129 million total with a $15 million cost, I don't think anyone will be complaining.
Next weeks big guns who will try to sway the box office back into winning territory will be: the film that proves not all experimental drugs are bad: Limitless, the Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Seth Rogen-voiced alien road-trip film Paul and The Lincoln Lawyer, featuring Mathew McConaughey in his greatest role to date: a lawyer you don't want to punch. Strong talent, but I suspect we're in for another down week.
