First look: ‘Hangover’ parties alongside ‘Up’; ‘Land’ gets lost
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Summer 2009 has its first bomb and its first surprise hit.
Universal Pictures and Relativity Media’s ‘Land of the Lost’ sold a lame $19.5 million worth of tickets on its opening weekend, qualifying it as the first flop at the box office since the wave of $100-million-plus event films started in early May.
Despite being based on a well-known TV property and the presence of one of the biggest stars in comedy, Will Ferrell, the $100-million-budgeted ‘Land of the Lost’ couldn’t overcome devastating reviews and negative buzz that the film just isn’t very funny. After opening to a weak $7.1 million on Friday, the news didn’t improve Saturday as it grossed $7 million despite the opportunity to draw families to matinees.
Though pre-release audience polling indicated ‘Lost’ would have a weak opening, few industry insiders predicted it would do this badly.
Weekend results were exactly the opposite for ‘The Hangover.’ The modestly budgeted comedy, which has no major stars, was originally set by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures as counter-programming against summer event films such as ‘Lost.’ But fantastic reviews and word-of-mouth led it to nearly top the box office, as it grossed an astonishing $43.3 million.
Disney’s ‘Up’ was the weekend’s No. 1 movie. It dropped only 35% on its second weekend, the smallest amount by far for any big-budget summer film so far. With $44.2 million this weekend and strong weekday grosses thanks to kids starting to get out of school for the summer, Pixar’s latest animated feature has already grossed a very healthy $137.3 million domestically in just 10 days.
Focus Features opened indie comedy ‘Away We Go’ in limited release. The film, directed by Sam Mendes and starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, opened to a very healthy $143,260 at four theaters in Los Angeles and New York.
-- Ben Fritz