'Lone Survivor' Proves Sleeper Smash at the Box Office
Taylor Kitsch as Michael Murphy, Mark Wahlberg as Marcus Luttrell, Ben
Foster as Matt 'Axe' Axelson and Emile Hirsch as Danny Dietz in 'Lone
Survivor'
WINNERS OF THE WEEK: The Bergs. That'd be director Peter Berg and actor producer Mark Wahlberg. Their Lone Survivor,
which opened wide this weekend after two weekends in limited release,
proved the first surprise smash of 2014, topping the chart with an
estimated $38.5 million. That's better than any three-day January
opening except for the $40 million earned by Cloverfield six years ago. Plus, it marks an end to the streak of so-so January openings for Wahlberg (Contraband, Broken City) and reverses Berg's fortunes after the flop Battleship.
What Made Our List of the Best Movies of 2013?
How did the movie do so well, considering that pundits were guessing
it would open somewhere between $16 and $27 million? It helped that it
was based on a bestselling book (by Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, played in
the film by Wahlberg), is about a true incident of wartime heroism,
earned the best possible word-of-mouth (as measured by an A+ at
CinemaScore), appealed to women as well as men, and didn't have much
competition among new releases. Speaking of which. . . .
LOSERS OF THE WEEK: Movies with "Her" in the title. That'd be The Legend of Hercules and Her. Legend opened
in fourth place with an estimated $8.6 million, about the upper end of
expectations. Even though it was the only truly new wide release movie
of the weekend, it still couldn't beat holdovers Frozen (Number Two, with an estimated $15.1 million) and The Wolf of Wall Street (Number
Three, with an estimated $9.0 million). Then again, no one was
expecting much from this collaboration of director Renny Harlin (Cutthroat Island) and star Kellan Lutz (The Twilight Saga). For one thing, Lutz hasn't proved he has a male action fanbase, while the teen girls who loved Twilight weren't necessarily going to come out to see Lutz in this kind of role. In fact, in the seven years since 300, there hasn't been much demand for swords-and-sandals movies, though we'll be seeing a lot of them in 2014.
As for Her, Joaquin Phoenix's man-and-machine love story
expanded wide this week but underperformed, to the tune of an estimated
$5.4 million and an 11th place finish. Pundits had been expecting it to
vie with Hercules for a top-five spot and a take of around $8 million, but as with Phoenix's 2012 film The Master, even though film critics adored it, the public seems to have found it strange and disturbing.
'AUGUST' COMPANY: August: Osage County has garnered a lot less critical and awards-season love than Her,
but its wide-release expansion this weekend did a lot better. With a
take estimated at $7.3 million, it jumped from Number 31 on last week's
chart to Number Seven this weekend. Despite middling reviews, August still
has the combined star power of Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, and an
ensemble of other prestigious thespians. The Weinstein Company, which is
usually aces at scoring award nominations for its year-end films, will
just have to settle for having the movie make a lot of money.
Sunday, January 12, 2014 | 0
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