A look at this week’s box office ratings


With last week’s films experiencing huge drops and the two new releases not making an impact, the toy-based blockbuster continued its dominance at the box office.  The LEGO Movie repeated at No. 1 with $31.3 million, a light 37 percent drop from its giant President’s Day weekend gross.  So far the film has earned a resounding $183 million total, doing well enough that Warner Bros. has already announced a sequel for Memorial Day weekend in 2017.

In second place was 3 Days To Kill, the latest thriller from Luc Besson (The Fifth Element and producer of the Transporter series and Taken) and EuropaCorp.  Starring Kevin Costner as a dying Secret Service agent on one last mission, the film earned $12.24 million, which is slightly worse than the previous Luc Besson/EuropaCorp collaboration, The Family, which opened to $14.03 million in 2013.

More so than that film, 3 Days To Kill seemed to be going for a Taken-esque vibe by casting non-action actor Kevin Costner in a father-daughter thriller.  Taken, however, was, and remains, a true lightning-in-a-bottle circumstance with an extremely clear premise and a compelling lead.  The advertisements for this film couldn’t decide if it was serious, and didn’t really clarify what was at stake (recent ads didn’t even bring up the fact that Kevin Costner’s character is dying, which is central to everything that happens in the film).

In third place was the period disaster epic Pompeii, which flopped with $10.34M.  Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (the Resident Evil movies, Alien Vs. Predator) and starring Game of Thrones’ Kit Harrington as a gladiator trying to save his life from the clutches of a corrupt senator in the midst of the historic volcanic eruption, the film seemed to have the right type of formula for a disaster film.

The most successful disaster films have to have characters the audience can care about, especially if it’s a romance at the core, with the quintessential example being Titanic.  And the story of the destruction of Pompeii has an angle of antiquity and tragedy that has appealed to filmmakers throughout the years, with previous attempts to bring it to the screen.  At one point, Roman Polanski was going to direct a Pompeii-centered film with Orlando Bloom and Scarlett Johansson.

Even with the stunning and destructive visuals of Mount Vesuvius, it almost completely overwhelmed any of the characters or any sense of plot in the marketing.  This actually marks Paul W.S. Anderson’s second historical 3-D flop, having directed 2011’s The Three Musketeers.  This film seemed to share many of the same issues marketing-wise and storyline-wise; if there’s any condolence, however, this film opened marginally better than the 2011 feature, which opened to $8.67 million and finished with $20.37 million.

Many of the other films this weekend took a huge hit. The three romances from last week (Endless Love, About Last Night and Winter’s Tale) all had drops of 67 percent or more, which is extreme in any case.  Robocop had a 54.8 percent drop to $9.8 million and will likely finish well under its fellow Verhoeven sci-fi remake, Total Recall.

Next week should be more interesting.  It’s entirely possible that The LEGO Movie could pull off a rare quadruple lead. It will be challenged by Non-Stop, the latest action thriller starring Liam Neeson, and Son of God, the cinematic edit of NBC’s record-breaking television mini-series, The Bible.  It’s also possible, however, that people might stay in Sunday to watch the Oscars.

 

Robert Calcagno is a graduate student studying Animation. His column, “Tech Talk,” runs Mondays.

 This post has been updated to reflect final box office numbers