Get ready, America, for the year of Natalie Portman.
Portman’s No Strings Attached (which also stars camera pitchman Ashton Kutcher) roped in box office honors this weekend, threading its way to $20.3 million. It’s one of two films she has in the top 10 this week (the other is Black Swan, settling in at No. 6). The former Princess Amidala also has three other films scheduled to hit the market in 2011: Your Highness, Cloud Atlas and the big-budget comic book adaptation Thor. She’s the odds-on favorite to claim an Academy Award for her work in Black Swan, too. Clearly, the girl is eating her Wheaties.
The Green Hornet, last week’s champ, squealed in to second place with $18.1 million, The Dilemma held down third with $9.7 mil, and critical darling The King’s Speech climbed all the way to fourth with $9.2 million.
Other new releases didn’t fare quite as well as the crass comedy Strings. The Way Back—the dramatic, slow and ultimately rewarding PG-13 flick I reviewed this week—pocketed a measly $1.5 million (barely enough, I’m guessing, to cover the cast and crew’s travel expenses) to stagger into 14th place. Too bad … this is a film that I think deserved better. The Company Men earned less than $800,000, albeit in far fewer theaters. I don’t know if it would’ve done much better had it gotten a wide release, though. I mean, how many people want to go to a movie these days about corporate downsizing?
Oh, and for all you Narnia-watchers out there, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader crossed $100 million in North American receipts this week and is still floating at No. 15 seven weeks after its release. That little boat got off to a leaky start, but it refuses to sink. Given that its worldwide take comes to a $358 million, is it possible we might see a movie of The Silver Chair yet?
Maybe … if Natalie Portman agrees to star.
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