The exorbitant marketing attempts to turn I Am Number Four into a franchise building hit reeked of desperation and appears to have failed rather miserably with the film pipped to the top spot over the weekend by the Liam Neeson vehicle Unknown. With only half of the sci-fi adventure's budget, the $30 million produced Unknown opened with a solid $21.7 million which was especially pleasing news for production company Dark Castle who have been on a significant losing streak lately with recent outputs Splice ($17 mil), Rock N Rolla ($5.7 mil) and Whiteout ($10.2 mil) all performing rather feebly. Unknown was advertised as Taken meets the Bourne Identity and blatant attempts were made to draw on Neeson's popularity with Take back your life being used as the film's tagline to Neeson's protagonist declaring how his life and wife were both taken from him. The film's trailer also did a sound job at arousing intrigue surrounding the film's plot and central characters. European-based thrillers can sometimes lack the big time feel to pull in large audiences but Unknown has succeeded where pictures such as The International struggled financially. And the movie turned out to be genuinely fun, as OWF's Rob Beames reported in Berlin. I Am Number Four was hyped with heavy marketing but as a picture which attempted to appeal to both genders it seems to have alienated core elements of both demographics leading to a $19.5 million opening sum that failed to even reach a third of the films production budget. It is an extremely hard task to attempt to appeal to both male and female audiences at large and as evidenced by a string of recent hit franchises i.e. Twilight, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings it is much more beneficial to target a single gender. I Am Number Four spent a considerable amount of time advertising Number Six, aka the female love interest when it perhaps should have been focusing on promoting the visual effects and character driven set-pieces. The film is unlikely to spawn a sequel although it should easily make a reasonable profit especially with the benefit of international figures, as the movie opens in the U.K. this week. As a picture that was perhaps expected to double its initial figures I Am Number Four is also the unfortunate victor of the Box Office Flop of the Week. Last week I had anticipated that Gnomeo & Juliet's opening weekend haul which was evenly distributed over the three days of the weekend would make it a likely chart stayer and thus far this prediction is holding strong as the animation held onto third place with an impressive 23.5% percentage. The film has now made over $50 million dollars after ten days on release and is being projected as the number one film for the full President's Day Weekend which also counts Monday grosses. We'll have an update tomorrow on the full President's Weekend figures currently being contested as a three horse race amongst the aforementioned films.
ROUND-UP:
BOX OFFICE SUCCESS STORY OF THE WEEK The King's Speech became the thirty ninth slowest film to reach a $100 million after its thirteenth weekend in the charts. In the process it financially overhauled fellow oscar contenders The Social Network and Black Swan with Darren Aronofsky's film also surpassing the $100 millionth mark over the weekend. The King's Speech continues to take small but satisfying doses each week and triumphed over the weekend with another admirably low drop percentage. The third major new entry Big Momma's House: Like Father, Like Son opened in fifth, performing significantly worse than the film's predecessors and in fact when gross is adjusted for inflation it is revealed that attendance was less than half for the first two films in the comedy franchise. This is not really that surprising given that the third installment appears some five years after the sequel and blatantly appears as a cash driven and rather needless update. As Little Fockers proved, audiences are not so naïve that they'll immediately jump up and watch a film just because the original made them laugh. And usually its a sequel that didn't make them laugh that acts as the primary reason why the third film financially pales in comparison. Just Go With It dropped 40.4% to fall three places to fourth and whilst performing solidly it is not making anywhere near the number of Sandler's February 2004 hit 50 First Dates which by this stage of the race had made $92 million (when adjusted for inflation.) The latter film however did have the marketing advantage of reuniting Sandler and Barrymore as the popular leading duo from The Wedding Singer. The Justin Bieber concert film Never Say Never dropped quite heavily as expected falling from second to sixth in the charts. The picture has put the Jonas Brothers concert to shame although still has a way to go to catch the overall gross of the Hannah Montana and Michael Jackson big screen concert outings. The full chart can be seen below. 1 N Unknown WB $21,770,000 - 3,043 - $7,154 $21,770,000 $30 1 2 N I Am Number Four BV $19,500,000 - 3,154 - $6,183 $19,500,000 $60 1 3 3 Gnomeo and Juliet BV $19,400,000 -23.5% 3,014 +20 $6,437 $50,421,000 - 2 4 1 Just Go With It Sony $18,200,000 -40.4% 3,548 - $5,130 $60,756,000 $80 2 5 N Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son Fox $17,000,000 - 2,821 - $6,026 $17,000,000 $32 1 6 2 Justin Bieber: Never Say Never Par. $13,600,000 -53.9% 3,118 +13 $4,362 $48,473,000 $13 2 7 6 The King's Speech Wein. $6,566,000 -9.2% 2,086 -177 $3,148 $103,278,000 $15 13 8 5 The Roommate SGem $4,100,000 -49.5% 2,160 -374 $1,898 $32,694,000 $16 3 9 4 The Eagle Focus $3,559,000 -59.0% 2,296 - $1,550 $15,041,000 $25 2 10 7 No Strings Attached Par. $3,120,000 -46.3% 1,966 -790 $1,587 $66,033,000 $25 5 11 9 True Grit Par. $2,400,000 -36.6% 1,465 -607 $1,638 $164,118,000 $38 9 12 8 Sanctum Uni. $1,577,000 -72.1% 1,377 -1,412 $1,145 $21,886,000 $30 3
"Growing up, Laurent was such an ardent fan of wrestling superstar Stone Cold Steve Austin that he actually attempted to send the Texas Rattlesnake a letter demanding that he defeat arch-nemesis The Rock at Wrestlemania 15. Oh hell yeah, it was all still very real to him back then dammit. As an aspiring writer of multiple genres and platforms, he has also recently co-authored a non-fiction movie e-book entitled 'Egos, Cliches, Flops and Lost Films: Examining the powerful madness of the movies' which is written in a similarly light hearted and informative style to his wrestling articles and which can be browsed and purchased by following the link below - http://www.amazon.com/Egos-Cliches-Flops-Films-ebook/dp/B0088YNTBC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339093928&sr=8-1"
The exorbitant marketing attempts to turn I Am Number Four into a franchise building hit reeked of desperation and appears to have failed rather miserably with the film pipped to the top spot over the weekend by the Liam Neeson vehicle Unknown. With only half of the sci-fi adventure's budget, the $30 million produced Unknown opened with a solid $21.7 million which was especially pleasing news for production company Dark Castle who have been on a significant losing streak lately with recent outputs Splice ($17 mil), Rock N Rolla ($5.7 mil) and Whiteout ($10.2 mil) all performing rather feebly. Unknown was advertised as Taken meets the Bourne Identity and blatant attempts were made to draw on Neeson's popularity with Take back your life being used as the film's tagline to Neeson's protagonist declaring how his life and wife were both taken from him. 
I Am Number Four was hyped with heavy marketing but as a picture which attempted to appeal to both genders it seems to have alienated core elements of both demographics leading to a $19.5 million opening sum that failed to even reach a third of the films production budget. It is an extremely hard task to attempt to appeal to both male and female audiences at large and as evidenced by a string of recent hit franchises i.e. Twilight, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings it is much more beneficial to target a single gender. I Am Number Four spent a considerable amount of time advertising Number Six, aka the female love interest when it perhaps should have been focusing on promoting the visual effects and character driven set-pieces. The film is unlikely to spawn a sequel although it should easily make a reasonable profit especially with the benefit of international figures, as the movie opens in the U.K. this week. As a picture that was perhaps expected to double its initial figures I Am Number Four is also the unfortunate victor of the Box Office Flop of the Week. 
Last week I had anticipated that Gnomeo & Juliet's opening weekend haul which was evenly distributed over the three days of the weekend would make it a likely chart stayer and thus far this prediction is holding strong as the animation held onto third place with an impressive 23.5% percentage. The film has now made over $50 million dollars after ten days on release and is being projected as the number one film for the full President's Day Weekend which also counts Monday grosses. We'll have an update tomorrow on the full President's Weekend figures currently being contested as a three horse race amongst the aforementioned films. 
BOX OFFICE SUCCESS STORY OF THE WEEK The King's Speech became the thirty ninth slowest film to reach a $100 million after its thirteenth weekend in the charts. In the process it financially overhauled fellow oscar contenders The Social Network and Black Swan with Darren Aronofsky's film also surpassing the $100 millionth mark over the weekend. The King's Speech continues to take small but satisfying doses each week and triumphed over the weekend with another admirably low drop percentage. The third major new entry Big Momma's House: Like Father, Like Son opened in fifth, performing significantly worse than the film's predecessors and in fact when gross is adjusted for inflation it is revealed that attendance was less than half for the first two films in the comedy franchise. This is not really that surprising given that the third installment appears some five years after the sequel and blatantly appears as a cash driven and rather needless update. As Little Fockers proved, audiences are not so naïve that they'll immediately jump up and watch a film just because the original made them laugh. And usually its a sequel that didn't make them laugh that acts as the primary reason why the third film financially pales in comparison. 
Just Go With It dropped 40.4% to fall three places to fourth and whilst performing solidly it is not making anywhere near the number of Sandler's February 2004 hit 50 First Dates which by this stage of the race had made $92 million (when adjusted for inflation.) The latter film however did have the marketing advantage of reuniting Sandler and Barrymore as the popular leading duo from The Wedding Singer. The Justin Bieber concert film Never Say Never dropped quite heavily as expected falling from second to sixth in the charts. The picture has put the Jonas Brothers concert to shame although still has a way to go to catch the overall gross of the Hannah Montana and Michael Jackson big screen concert outings. The full chart can be seen below. 1 N Unknown WB $21,770,000 - 3,043 - $7,154 $21,770,000 $30 1 2 N I Am Number Four BV $19,500,000 - 3,154 - $6,183 $19,500,000 $60 1 3 3 Gnomeo and Juliet BV $19,400,000 -23.5% 3,014 +20 $6,437 $50,421,000 - 2 4 1 Just Go With It Sony $18,200,000 -40.4% 3,548 - $5,130 $60,756,000 $80 2 5 N Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son Fox $17,000,000 - 2,821 - $6,026 $17,000,000 $32 1 6 2 Justin Bieber: Never Say Never Par. $13,600,000 -53.9% 3,118 +13 $4,362 $48,473,000 $13 2 7 6 The King's Speech Wein. $6,566,000 -9.2% 2,086 -177 $3,148 $103,278,000 $15 13 8 5 The Roommate SGem $4,100,000 -49.5% 2,160 -374 $1,898 $32,694,000 $16 3 9 4 The Eagle Focus $3,559,000 -59.0% 2,296 - $1,550 $15,041,000 $25 2 10 7 No Strings Attached Par. $3,120,000 -46.3% 1,966 -790 $1,587 $66,033,000 $25 5 11 9 True Grit Par. $2,400,000 -36.6% 1,465 -607 $1,638 $164,118,000 $38 9 12 8 Sanctum Uni. $1,577,000 -72.1% 1,377 -1,412 $1,145 $21,886,000 $30 3