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.
