“The Help” Carries the Box Office Burden Alone

“The Help” hardly broke a sweat in claiming the number one position at the weekend’s US box office as its rival movies struggled to attract the masses to theatres.

Walt Disney Studios revealed that “The Help” raked in another $20.5 million, which brings its total domestic box office earnings to $71.8 million in just 12 days on the big screens. The comedy-drama based on Kathryn Stockett’s novel of the same name is doing such a fine job that Disney is looking to put it in extra theatres from next weekend.

But while “The Help” fared impressively, the rest of the movies all had forgettable weekends. The extent of four newcomers’ struggles was such that they were out-grossed even by “The Rise of the Planets of the Apes,” which had debuted more than three weekends ago. The James Franco-starrer grossed another $16.3 million to bring its overall domestic revenue to $133.8 million.

The biggest letdown of the weekend was the remake movie “Conan the Barbarian,” which missed its pre-release target by 33.3% to gross just $10 million.

Lionsgate’s executive vice president of distribution David Spitz said, “We’re disappointed with the results, but I think box office in general was down this weekend. I was at a theater in Century City — normally, during the summer, you can’t even walk through the lobby there — and it was like a ghost town.”

The 4-D movie “Spy Kids: All the Time in the World” did the most decent business of all the debutant movies, collection $12 million nationwide. Colin Farrell-led horror remake also failed to find its audience and had to settle for a meager total of $8.3 million, while Anne Hathaway’s romantic movie “One Day” also earned a mere $5.1 million-although it was released in at least a thousand less cinemas than other debutants.

Source: [latimes.com]

Image Source: [moviespad.com]