After movie studios last week had the decency to not post box office estimates in the wake of the Aurora Shooting, we’re now back to gauging how good a movie is not by actual artistic merit and content, but by how many people bought a ticket to see it. And for a second week in a row, The Dark Knight Rises topped the box office with $62.8 Million, which puts its total at $287.8 Million. But despite already earning back more than its budget, it hasn’t earned more than The Avengers so it’s a complete failure. Now let’s all go on Facebook and talk about how much it sucked, because disliking popular, well-made, critically-acclaimed movies makes you cool or something.
Ice Age: Continental Drift is still holding in pretty well, which I guess means it actually happened and the whole movie isn’t just some sort of fever dream like I originally thought. I know, weird. Anyway, it earned $13.3 Million, which just barely put it above …
The Watch. Yes, the comedic pairing of Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn probably would have done some insane numbers if this were still 2006, but Ben’s put-upon everyman shtick combined with Vince’s “I’m constantly fed-up with everything” just doesn’t hold up like it used to. That and the movie came out after the Trayvon Martin case (hence the name change), which is … yikes. Anyway, it earned $13 Million, which is just a teensy bit less than Ice Age, but just enough that it only cracked third place.
Did you know Step Up is an actual franchise now? Like, with multiple installments and everything? Seriously. I think one was enough, two was pushing it, and four is just irritating. But they made Step Up Revolution anyway, because dancers are an oppressed minority or something, and it earned $11.8 Million. But here’s where the math comes in: despite coming in fourth, Step Up actually earned more per theatre than Ice Age and The Watch. So when you take it all into consideration, all three movies did roughly the same numbers.
And now for a movie that didn’t underperform, Ted! Look, I know that Seth MacFarlane has a certain bro charm to him, but wow, I did not expect a movie about talking, foul-mouthed teddy bears to do this well. Ted earned another $7.3 Million this weekend, and has earned almost four times its revenue back.
Jeremy Feist is an (ahem) entertainer from Toronto, Canada. He writes, acts, and performs on stage, and has been a writer for Popbytes for almost three years now. He lives in Toronto with his boyfriend, his incredibly dumb but cute puppy, and his immortal cat.
