Not even James Cameron's name association and an enticing 3D underwater environment could inspire many Americans to part with their money to see
Sanctum, which was easily pipped to the top spot by psycho-teen horror
The Room-Mate over the super-bowl weekend. The Room-Mate opened with $15.6 million performing admirably well given that it was made on a cheap $16 million dollars and features little in the way of star quality. Sony/Screen gems will be delighted that a picture which could well have fallen under the radar has ousted a movie with almost twice its production budget. Certainly its dull, generic trailer which plays like an uninspired rip-off of Single White Female didn't suggest that it would attract such high audiences.
Sanctum had a terrible first weekend making just $10 million and with 84% of that gross being assisted by 3D ticket sales. This means in essence that almost three times as many people opted to see The Room-Mate. Sanctum performed similarly to Piranha 3-D, which was able to make a convincing profit owing to worldwide ticket sales and the producers will have to hope for a similar fate. I thought that James Cameron's name and his film titles being plastered over the screen might inspire more people to head to their multiplexes but the marketing might have been a lot more effective if they had gone for the 'less is more' effect as opposed to showcasing a trailer which highlighted lots of bad acting and dialogue with an overbearing, forced narration. Despite the 3-D effects the film has the feel of a straight to television affair and audiences seemed to pick up on this. Sanctum flopping was part of the reason why business was down 21% from the previous year and and according to
Box Office Mojo was "the least attended Super Bowl weekend in 15 years."
ROUND-UP:
BOX OFFICE SUCCESS STORY OF THE WEEK: No Strings Attached dropped just 37.4% from the previous weekend in spite of two new releases. After three weeks in the chart the film has now doubled its $25 million production budget and should triple it before its run has finished. Very good news then for Ivan Reitman who will have a much bigger budget to handle with the highly anticipated Ghostbusters threequel forthcoming.
BOX OFFICE FLOP OF THE WEEK: Sanctum might be the obvious choice here but it was also a horrible weekend for last weekend's chart topper
The Rite which dropped a staggering 62.4% from its opening weekend figures. This is common for films in this genre but that doesn't make the heavy fall any more comforting. Jason Statham vehicle
The Mechanic made less than half of its opening weekend sum and will struggle to match its $40 million budget. It is fairly standard for Statham films to drop heavily after the first week out on release but movies such as The Bank Job and Crank didn't have such a high budget to worry about. Nonetheless worldwide audiences should help The Mechanic make a sound profit.
The King's Speech had another solid week in the charts as it continues to crawl its way towards the inevitable 100 million mark and
Black Swan is nearly there already as it fell to tenth place with a 95 million dollar total, an overwhelming commercial success for such a low budget picture. 1 N The Roommate SGem $15,600,000 - 2,534 - $6,156 $15,600,000 $16 1 2 N Sanctum Uni. $9,225,000 - 2,787 - $3,310 $9,225,000 $30 1 3 2 No Strings Attached Par. $8,400,000 -37.4% 3,050 +28 $2,754 $51,788,000 $25 3 4 5 The King's Speech Wein. $8,310,000 -24.9% 2,584 +27 $3,216 $84,125,000 $15 11 5 4 The Green Hornet Sony $6,100,000 -45.5% 3,033 -491 $2,011 $87,222,000 $120 4 6 1 The Rite WB (NL) $5,565,000 -62.4% 2,985 - $1,864 $23,677,000 $37 2 7 3 The Mechanic CBS $5,370,000 -53.0% 2,704 +1 $1,986 $20,080,000 $40 2 8 6 True Grit Par. $4,750,000 -36.8% 2,902 -218 $1,637 $155,012,000 $38 7 9 7 The Dilemma Uni. $3,448,000 -39.1% 2,545 -356 $1,355 $45,740,000 $70 4 10 8 Black Swan FoxS $3,400,000 -33.6% 1,977 -338 $1,720 $95,888,000 $13 10 11 9 The Fighter Par. $2,900,000 -26.8% 1,662 -252 $1,745 $82,463,000 $25 9 12 10 Yogi Bear WB $2,335,000 -26.3% 1,807 -326 $1,292 $95,453,000 $80 8