Paramount’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra overcame the bad buzz generated by a lackluster Super Bowl spot and reports of behind-the-scenes power struggles, as well as a savaging at the hands of major movie critics to deliver an easy victory at the weekend box office where it scored the second-highest August opening ever by a non-sequel with an estimated total of $56.2 million. 

Of course, the term "non-sequel" is hardly applicable to films like G.I. Joe, which are based on well known properties, since they are certainly not in the same position with audiences as movies based on entirely original IP such as Pixar’s Up.  The relatively strong debut of the G.I. Joe live action film certainly furthers the prospects of other movies based on Hasbro toys and games such as Stretch Armstrong, Clue and Candyland, as well as those of films based on other 1980s Saturday morning cartoon hits such as Voltron and He-Man.

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): August 7 - 9, 2009

With G.I. Joe’s potent debut and a stronger than expected opening for the foodie flick, Julie & Julia, which bowed north of $20 million, the weekend box office reversed a month-long losing trend posted a substantial 20% gain over the same frame from last year.

Paramount didn’t pre-screen the G.I. Joe movie for critics (see “No Advance Reviews for G.I. Joe”) and the film did receive a withering, though belated, lashing from cinema pundits.  But as has been the pattern all summer, audiences ignored the bad reviews and flocked to the theaters anyway.  A 16% drop from Friday to Saturday could indicate mediocre word of mouth, but audience research reported an “OK” CinemaScore of “B+” with the all-important under-18 audience giving the non-stop action flick an “A-.”

In spite of its potent opening, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, which earned an additional $44 million overseas, will have to develop some serious “legs” to earn the $350 million worldwide needed to make its enormous $175 million cost back from box office revenues.  But there are other revenue streams available to the studio.  Aside from the DVD and pay-per-view, which could be considerable, Paramount gets a share of toy, comic book, game and other tie-in merchandise revenue.  It should be interesting to see if the film can avoid a serious second weekend drop-off in the face of competition from the Peter Jackson-produced science fiction thriller District 9, which picked up a lot of buzz at Comic-Con.

It’s hard to remember the last time a top-five movie had an audience that averaged more than 50 years of age, but Sony’s Julie & Julia, which features a tour-de-force performance by Meryl Streep as Julia Child, managed the trick as it opened above expectations with a $20.1 million take that was good enough for second place.  Perhaps the paucity of older-skewing hits is simply the result of the fact that Hollywood rarely tries to capture the elderly female demographic, but it is clear that filmmaker Nora Ephron has hit the mark this time as her film managed a solid “A” CinemaScore from filmgoers.

Disney’s hamster-powered G-Force held on to third place with a solid $9.8 million take, while Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince cooled off at #4 with $8.8 million.  The latest Potter film still trails Up by nearly $14 million for the runner-spot to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which fell to #12 as it earned another $3 million and brought its 2009-leading cumulative to a massive $393 million.

Last week’s winner Funny People suffered a drastic decline (for a comedy) of 65.3%, something that ICv2 noted last week was a possibility (as it is for this weekend’s winner G.I. Joe, though such major declines are more likely with a hugely-hyped action blockbuster like The Rise of Cobra).