Weekend Box Office: Think Like a Man Leads the Calm Before Blockbuster Storm

By Chris Kavan - 04/29/12 at 11:22 PM CT

Audiences were apparently content to sit and wait things out this weekend as it was a somewhat lackluster performance, especially for the new releases, at the box office.

Leading the way for the second week in a row was Think Like a Man. Down 47% from its opening weekend, the battle of the sexes comedy took in $18 million for a nearly $61 million total. The film now stands as the highest-grossing April release, surging past the re-release of Titanic ($56.2 million).

Coming in second, and leading the new releases for the weekend, was The Pirates! Band of Misfits. With just $11.4 million, however, the win isn't all that impressive. Considering less than $500,000 separates 2nd through 5th place - Monday's final tally could shake up the final positions of the films. The total also represents the lowest return for Aardman Animation - as it couldn't match the opening of Arthur Christmas ($12.1 million) and has even less a chance of the staying power that film had considering it had the holiday time frame to operate with.

The week's most disappointing showing has to belong to The Five-Year Engagement. Opening all the way down in 5th place with $11.16 million, Jason Segel just didn't have the same luck he did with Forgetting Sarah Marshall ($17.7 million) or I Love You, Man ($17.8 million). Maybe Think Like a Man just held more appeal or perhaps the concept was too generic, but for whatever reason, it just didn't catch on. The largely female audience (64%) also wasn't that kind, awarding the film a mediocre B- score.

The two other new releases also failed to scare up much of an audience: Jason Statham's Safe wound up in 6th with a non-butt kicking total of just $7.7 million (lower than both The Mechanic's $11.4 million and Killer Elite's $9.4 million), though at least it did manage to do better than Lockout's $6.2 million opening. Meanwhile The Raven, trying best to ape the success of Sherlock Holmes, utterly failed in 7th with $7.2 million.

Rounding out the top five: The Lucky One was off about 50% for a third place showing of $11.3 million for a $40 million total. It's running behind Dear John for the same time period, but still ahead of The Notebook. The Hunger Games continued to hold well, dropping just 23% for a fourth place $11.2 million total. The film has brought in $372.4 million since opening and, even with The Avengers coming up, it should wind up topping the $381 million of Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows, Part 2, and still has a chance of cracking the $400 million mark.

Of note outside the top 10 - down in the limited release market, Bernie, Richard Linklater's dark comedy starring Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey and Shirley McClain, may have opened in just three theaters, but it's whopping $30,146 average is the best showing for a limited release film for 2012 and also represents a personal best for Linklater.

Next week - well, it's all about The Avengers. And if the $178.4 million it pulled in the foreign box office is any indication, this is going to be a monster hit - perhaps even reaching the $1 billion world-wide mark before it's over. I know I'm going to watch it - what about you?