Well smack my face and call me Ackbar, as I did not see this one coming. While I do like The Rock, I considered myself to be one of the many who thought watching him deal with a cinnamon allergy as simply ridiculous. Peter Berg's The Kingdom, on the other hand, should have had a pretty competition-free weekend.
In the words of Lex Luthor: Wrong!
Box Office Winner: The Game Plan
Universal Pictures have found a new reason to hang their heads, as the Disney comedy The Game Plan exceeded expectations by grossing a whopping $22.7 million. The Kingdom came in at number two with $17.7 million.
While both pics were tracking similar numbers on Friday, The Game Plan jumped up 63% to Saturday -- word of mouth? -- to Kingdom's 16%.
Though some could claim that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is proving just how powerful his draw is, which could be true, one must also acknowledge that, in a season of violent, R-rated films, The Game Plan represents one of the few escapes for families looking to hit the theaters.
The Feast of Love, a film whose marketing seemed to turn on and off as its release date approached, failed to break the top 10 with $1.7 million.
On the specialty side, we have both The Darjeeling Limited, which nabbed the higher per-screen average of the year with $70,000 ($140K) and Lust, Caution, which also performed well with ~$62K off a single screen. The erotic period pic from Ang Lee helped show strength in the much-feared NC-17 rating.
Add to Heffee!
