The big screen battle between two new buddy movie comedies proved to be no contest.  The Green Hornet easily topped the weekend box office with an estimated total of $34 million, the highest-grossing opening ever for a live-action superhero comedy.  The Hornet’s better than expected total was nearly double that of the non-superhero buddy comedy The Dilemma, which starred Hollywood heavyweights Vince Vaughn and Kevin James and brought in an estimated $17.4 million.  Overall the box office was still down about 25% from last year when Avatar and The Book of Eli dominated.

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): January 14 - 16, 2011

 

Film

Weekend Gross

Screens

Avg./

Screen

Total Gross

Wk#

1

The Green Hornet

$34,000,000

3,584

$9,487

$34,000,000

1

2

The Dilemma

$17,419,000

2,940

$5,925

$17,419,000

1

3

True Grit

$11,200,000

3,459

$3,238

$126,412,000

4

4

The King's Speech

$9,070,000

1,543

$5,878

$44,595,000

8

5

Black Swan

$8,125,000

2,328

$3,490

$72,993,000

7

6

Little Fockers

$7,138,000

3,394

$2,103

$134,224,000

4

7

Tron: Legacy

$5,674,000

2,439

$2,326

$156,913,000

5

8

Yogi Bear

$5,345,000

2,702

$1,978

$82,095,000

5

9

The Fighter

$5,125,000

2,414

$2,123

$65,770,000

6

10

Season of the Witch

$4,500,000

2,827

$1,592

$17,998,000

2

 
Sony fielded a potent marketing campaign for The Green Hornet with plenty of spots ads placed during key football and basketball sports telecasts as well as a major promotion with Carl’s Jr.  The Green Hornet, which features Seth Rogen as the eponymous hero and Taiwanese star Jay Chou as his more competent buddy/sidekick Kato, attracted an audience that was predominantly male (61%), but split nicely between young and old (50% under 25).  The Green Hornet is on track to earn over $40 million for the full MLK holiday weekend, which would rank as the second best MLK debut ever behind 2008’s Cloverfield.  Of course it should be noted that the higher 3-D ticket prices played a role in The Green Hornet’s box office performance--the 3-D screens accounted for 69% of the film’s three-day total.
 
The move to MLK weekend launch proved to be a wise one for The Green Hornet.  A number of less-than-top-tier superheroes including Daredevil in 2003 ($40.3 million) and Ghost Rider in 2007 ($45.3 million) have opened well in the first quarter when box office competition is typically not as strong as the summer.  The question for The Green Hornet will be--can it build on it strong opening in the coming weeks?
 
Meanwhile The Dilemma, a film that stirred up controversy with the use of an anti-gay slur in an early trailer, opened lower than many had expected, though comedies tend to have a chance to recover if audiences find them entertaining.  The opening weekend audience for The Dilemma was predominantly female (60%) and older (58% over 30).
 
The Coen brothers’ True Grit topped the holdovers. The western saga dropped just 23.3% as it raised its cumulative to $126.4 million.  Two critical darlings, The King’s Speech ($9 million) and Black Swan ($8.1 million) followed in the fourth and fifth positions ahead the fading Little Fockers ($7.1 million). 
 
Tron: Legacy earned a solid $5.6 million in its fifth weekend of release, bringing its domestic cumulative to $157 million, while Yogi Bear kept on showing some furry “legs” as it earned $5.3 million in its fifth weekend. 
 
The medieval fantasy Season of the Witch, which opened in the number 2 spot last week, dropped 57.6% and ended up at #10.