Weekend Box Office: Audiences Into 'Into You', 'Coraline'

I am anything but a rom-com fan (there's maybe one good one a year, by my reckoning), but even I was charmed by the lovely, funny trailer for He's Just Not That Into You. A bunch of genuinely funny people -- Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Aniston, Justin Long, Drew Barrymore -- in what appeared to be a breezy, clever rumination on romance (that voicemail Goodwin leaves, starting out as a practiced, casual come-on and deteriorating into a panicked digression about how "more women are admitted to law school now than men," made me laugh every time): I wanted to see it. I haven't yet -- the unversally bad reviews dampened my enthusiasm -- but apparently the rest of the country wanted to see it too. The two-hour-plus film won a busy weekend with $27.5 million dollars, beating out a sci-fi thriller, a broad comedy with Steve Martin, and a 3-D animated wonder.

The latter, Henry Selick's Coraline, settled for third with $16.3 million. That may not seem like much, but consider that the film had no brand (with the possible exception of the "from the makers of A Nightmare Before Christmas label) and that the marketing did little to hide its deep-seated creepiness. On the other hand, Push, the gorgeous-but-incoherent sci-fi thriller only managed $10.2 million, a disappointing opening for what could have been at least a minor event film. Blame a crowded weekend and the fact that Summit Entertainment is still a relative newcomer to this whole wide distribution thing.




The $12 million number for The Pink Panther 2 seems weirdly low, but it's predecessor wasn't exactly a smash hit either; it opened to $20 million and ended up at just over $80. Sony may have misjudged the first film's popularity among those who saw it; I think this franchise is dead in the water. Oh, and I should mention that the Weinstein Co.'s dump of Fanboys on 44 screens resulted in $164,000 for the film -- $3,727 per screen. Nicely done guys.

It was a good weekend for holdovers. The terrific Taken held up extraordinarily well for an action flick, landing in second place, and may end up eyeing $100 million. The Oscar contenders mostly held up well too, with only The Curious Case of Benjamin Button seeming to peter out -- not surprising, since it's the only one that launched with a traditional wide release.


1 - He's Just Not That Into You (New Line) - $27.47 ($8,650) - $27.47
2 - Taken (Fox) - $20.30 ($6,376) - $53.36
3 - Coraline (Focus) - $16.34 ($7,105) - $16.34
4 - The Pink Panther 2 (Sony) - $12.00 ($3,700) - $12.00
5 - Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) - $11.00 ($3,471) - $97.00
6 - Push (Summit) - $10.20 ($4,412) - $10.20
7 - Gran Torino (Warner Bros.) - $7.42 ($2,743) - $120.28
8 - Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) - $7.40 ($4,292) - $77.43
9 - The Uninvited (Dreamworks) - $6.40 ($2,730) - $18.38
10 - Hotel for Dogs (Dreamworks) - $5.82 ($2,129) - $55.23

See Box Office Mojo for more.

Next week probably belongs to Friday the 13th, which will square off agains The International and Confessions of a Shopaholic. What are you seeing?