City of Angels? More like City of Extraterrestrials.
Late last year, a horde of space-surfing aliens swooped into Los Angeles and showed us humans what’s what in the film Skyline. It made a meager $21 million in North America.
Well, second time’s a charm, right? This weekend, aliens invaded L.A. again—specifically, the charming community of Santa Monica—in an effort to lure stubborn humanoids to the theaters. The invasion scared up a box office win for Battle Los Angeles and $36 million, giving the film at least a fighting chance to make good on its estimated $70 million production budget.
But it still wasn’t enough to turn around a lackluster 2011. Rango, last week’s champ, held on to second place with $23 million, while newcomer Red Riding Hood—a Twilightish retelling of the classic fairy tale—skipped along the forest path to a third place, $14.1-million take.
It wasn’t the sort of weekend any studio could boast about, but Disney has to feel particularly down in the mouth. Mars Needs Moms—an animated flick that cost an reported $150 million, earned a mere $6.8 mil its opening weekend—doomed, it would seem, by lackluster marketing and poor word of mouth. It’s the early front-runner to be 2011’s biggest bomb, which is really too bad: While critics overall weren’t charmed by the CGI flick, Plugged In sure liked it. Reviewer Bob Hoose said the film was packed with positive messages, and “It’ll give parents a warm feeling inside as they wipe popcorn grease from little chins and make sure everyone’s buckled in tight for the space flight home.”
Ah, well. There’s always next weekend.
Recent Comments