42 easily won this weekend at the box office, earning an estimated $27 million. The baseball movie had the benefit of a modest budget and Harrison Ford has no problem drawing a crowd, so Warner Bros. should be happy with its performance.
On the other hand, Scary Movie 5's performance may leave the Weinsteins shaking their heads. Scary Movie 4 was released in 2006 and earned $40 million in its opening weekend. The fifth installment of the comedy franchise couldn't even break the $20 million mark this time around, earning only $15.1 million and taking second place. This may signal the end of the franchise, or at least another long break.
It's no surprise to see that Evil Dead is down at fifth place. Horror movies tend to be front-loaded, so they get most of the people interested in seeing the movie in the first week. Evil Dead has earned a total of $41.5 million since opening and is still in the process of opening internationally. We'll continue to report on its domestic and international gross over the next few weeks, but we think it will have no problem crossing $100 million worldwide and that should be good enough to merit a sequel.
Next week sees the wide release of Oblivion and a limited release for Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem. Here are the top ten results for this weekend:
1. 42 - $27,250,000
2. Scary Movie 5 - $15,153,000
3. The Croods - $13,200,000
4. G.I. Joe: Retaliation - $10,800,000
5. Evil Dead - $9,500,000
6. Jurassic Park 3D - $8,820,000
7. Olympus Has Fallen - $7,283,000
8. Oz The Great and Powerful - $4,923,000
9. Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor - $4,500,000
10. The Place Beyond the Pines - $4,080,000
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