Sony's Think Like a Man, which is based on Steve Harvey's advice tome Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, easily topped the weekend box office with a much better than expected total of $33 million.  Think Like a Man finally ended The Hunger Games' four weekend reign as box office champion.  Two other new films also performed well, though it appears that the overall box office gross dipped about 7% from the same weekend last year when Rio topped the charts.

 

Sony did an excellent job of marketing Think Like a Man to the film's primarily African-American audience via Steve Harvey's TV show and BET.  The movie, which was directed by Tim Powers (The Fantastic Four), was only in 2015 theaters, but its superb $16,777 per theater average was the third best of any film so far in 2012.  Like the films of Tyler Perry (only one of which, Madea Goes to Jail, debuted higher), Think Like a Man attracted an audience that was predominantly female (63%) and older (62% over 25), and they liked it giving it a solid "A" CinemaScore.  Since the film was made for just $13 million, Think Like a Man is already a moneymaker.

 

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): April 20 - 22, 2012
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./ Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	Think Like a Man	$33,000,000	2,015	$16,377	$33,000,000	1
2	The Lucky One	$22,805,000	3,155	$7,228	$22,805,000	1
3	The Hunger Games	$14,500,000	3,752	$3,865	$356,900,000	5
4	Chimpanzee	$10,205,000	1,563	$6,529	$10,205,000	1
5	The Three Stooges	$9,200,000	3,482	$2,642	$29,355,000	2
6	The Cabin in the Woods	$7,750,000	2,811	$2,757	$26,980,000	2
7	American Reunion	$5,200,000	3,033	$1,714	$48,300,000	3
8	Titanic 3D	$5,000,000	2,515	$1,988	$52,828,000	3
9	21 Jump Street	$4,600,000	2,427	$1,895	$127,066,000	6
10	Mirror Mirror	$4,114,000	2,938	$1,400	$55,206,000	4

 

In second place was The Lucky Man, which starred Zack Efron in a sentimental romance written by Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, Dear John) that also appealed primarily to a younger crowd (52% under 25) that was overwhelmingly female (76%).  Despite bad reviews, opening weekend audiences gave the film a "B+" CinemaScore.

 

Faced with competition for its core audience from The Lucky Man, it is no wonder that The Hunger Games slipped to third, but in doing so it continued to demonstrate great "legs" as it declined just 32% while bringing in an estimated $14.5 million.  Sure the competition hasn't been the strongest, but The Hunger Games has been by far the best-performing film of 2012 so far with a domestic cumulative of $359 million so far, which is good enough for 19th place in North American box office history.  This franchise-establishing hit should finish close to the $400 million mark.

 

In fourth place was the Disney nature documentary Chimpanzee, which earned an estimated $10.2 million, the best debut ever for a nature documentary.  Disney has been producing these Earth Day nature films for four years now, and it is nice to see this once potent movie genre getting any kind of a revival, though if the past in any guide, Chimpanzee will fade rather quickly once Earth Day is in the rear view mirror.  Women made up 68% of the debut weekend audience, and they gave Chimpanzee a solid "A" CinemaScore.

 

The Farrelly Brothers comedy The Three Stooges dropped 46% as it earned $9.2 milion to bring its ten-day total to $29.4 million.  The Joss Whedon-produced Cabin in the Woods had a similar 47% drop and earned an estimated $7.75 million.  That's a pretty good hold for a horror movie and especially for one that received a "C" CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences.  The high-concept film clearly upset a portion of its opening weekend audience who didn't enjoy seeing their favorite "slasher" genre satirized, but this movie has definite "cult film" potential with its clever send-up of the increasingly formulaic slasher genre--and it has a promising future on disc, if not necessarily in theaters.

 

Mention should be made of the comedy 21 Jump Street, which has spent six weeks in the "Top 10" and earned a stellar (for a comedy) $127 million, and the animated feature The Lorax, which fell out of the "Top 10," but which has earned nearly $207 million, which next to The Hunger Games’ massive take, is the best total of the year so far.

 

Check back next week to check on the performance of Joss Whedon's The Avengers, which opens in a number of overseas territories, and to see how the latest stop-motion from Aardman Animation (Wallace & Gromit), The Pirates! Band of Misfits, the horror film The Raven, and the Jason Segel/Emily Blunt comedy, The Five Year Engagement all fare at the box office.