The kid who’s wimpy whupped the teen girls whose couture is skimpy. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, second in the film adaptations of Jeff Kinney’s stick-drawn book characters, earned $24.1 million, according to early studio estimates. That made it a winner over Zack Snyder’s comix-style adventure Sucker Punch, with $19 million, at the shrimpy, limpy, anything-but-blimpy North American box office. For the 17th time in the past 18 weeks, theatrical revenue was down from the same week the year before.
Movie analysts are now so inured to the slump that they look for any silver lining around the spreading blotch of red ink. “Sure, the domestic market was still down,” the industry blog The Wrap proclaimed, “but only 6% this time.” That’s the Hollywood version of an optimistic economist’s reading of unemployment figures over the past two years: the bad thing is getting worse, but more slowly. One difference is that, for most of the Great Recession, box-office revenue boomed. The $10.6 billion earned at North American movie houses in 2009 marked a 10% jump from 2008; and last year’s total take of $10.57 billion was nearly as high. Now the film business faces its own mortgage crisis, as one anemic week follows another.
Cadging a weak B-minus CinemaScore rating, and lacking either brand-name stars or a popular novel as its source material, Sucker Punch doesn’t have bright prospects. It registered the worst opening for any Snyder-directed live-action film, including Watchmen, his breakout hit 300 and the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead Yet the executives at Warner Bros., Snyder’s home studio, must love the guy; they’ve entrusted him with their multi-zillion-dollar Superman: Man of Steel reboot for summer 2012. The movie could be a smash — but wouldn’t you be nervous after Sucker Punch lost to Wimpy II? It’s as if your favorite NFL franchise, heading into a big playoff game, were led by a quarterback who in his last start got thrashed by a team from the Pop Warner League.
Here are the Sunday estimates of this weekend’s top-grossing pictures in North American theaters, as reported by Box Office Mojo:
1. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, $24.4 million, first weekend
2. Sucker Punch, $19 million, first weekend
3. Limitless, $15.2 million; $41.3 million, second week
4. The Lincoln Lawyer, $11 million; $29 million, second week
5. Rango, $9.8 million; $106.4 million, fourth week
6. Battle Los Angeles, $7.6 million; $72.6 million, third week
7. Paul, $7.5 million; $24.6 million, second week
8. Red Riding Hood, $4.3 million; $32.5 million, third week
9. The Adjustment Bureau, $4.2 million; $54.9 million, fourth week
10. Mars Needs Moms, $2.2 million; $19.2 million, third week See the 100 best movies of all time.
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