Spartans Triumph at Box Office

January 27, 2008 by Liam
Filed under: Movie News

In a weekend that saw 3 new releases hit theaters, the biggest story was the drop of last weekend’s top film.

Cloverfield dropped more than 68% of its audience since opening last weekend earning only $12.7 million and dropping to 4th spot for the weekend. I’m not going to say that this was a complete surprise – but I was mildly shocked. I mean, the “gimmick” behind the movie almost made it a necessity to see it opening weekend to avoid spoilers — but for the movie to drop so much from one weekend to the next is odd. What about word-of-mouth? Weren’t there those people who didn’t follow the film’s online marketing campaign who might’ve seen it a week late simply to avoid the opening weekend crowd? After 2 weekends of release, the monster movie has scared up more than $64 million in box office receipts.

In the battle for top spot, it was a tight race with Meet the Spartans narrowly edging out Rambo. The latest comedy spoof, this time poking fun at films such as 300 earned a respectable $18.7 million — pretty much guaranteeing we’ll be seeing a similar spoof movie this time next year. (With any luck it’ll be a spoof of Cloverfield.)

In 2nd spot was Sylvester Stallone who returned to theaters in Rambo. The fourth film in the franchise opened with $18.1 million — which was more than Rambo III ($13 million in 1988) but less than Rambo: First Blood Part II ($20.1 million in 1985). While the movie had a larger opening weekend than Rocky Balboa ($12.1 million), I can see the movie fizzling out much faster in the coming weeks (Balboa finished its box office run with earnings in excess of $70 million).

Finishing in 3rd spot for the weekend was the romantic comedy 27 Dresses starring Katherine Heigl. The movie dropped only 40% of its audience from last weekend adding another $13.6 million to is box office haul. To date, the movie has earned $45.3 million.

Rounding out the top films was another new release, Untraceable starring Diane Lane. The cyber-serial killer movie earned $11.2 million.

Next weekend’s new releases include the remake of The Eye starring Jessica Alba, Over Her Dead Body starring Eva Longoria and the comedy Strange Wilderness headed by Steve Zahn.

For more information, check out our Box Office results.

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