Weekend Box Office: Fickle comic-book fans put a crown on Guardians, a hit on Sin City
It’s a downfall worthy of James M. Cain: Years after leaving their past behind, two filmmakers return to the seedy city where they once did business, hoping to pull off one last score. But nothing goes as planned and the chips don’t fall in their favor. Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, the second collaboration between director Robert Rodriguez and creator Frank Miller, went down like a classic fall guy this weekend. Opening in a distant eighth place, the sequel made a paltry $6.48 million—or about 78 percent less than the original Sin City opened to nearly a decade ago. (Factor in ticket inflation and the exorbitant cost of 3-D, and that discrepancy becomes even more embarrassing.) Dame flopped hard, despite near-constant promotion during the first couple days of FXX’s Simpsons marathon. Maybe this wasn’t the best use of the Weinsteins’ marketing dollars; apparently, being bombarded with advertisements wasn’t enough to lure viewers away some of the best television episodes of all time, offered in chronological order for free. It would seem that Springfield is a more enticing vacation destination than Basin City.
Those Americans who did manage to pull themselves away from the boob-tube binge splurged instead—and possibly again—on Guardians Of The Galaxy, which crawled back to first place after a couple weeks of being bested by the Ninja Turtles. Adding another $17.6 million to its total haul, the superhero flick cleared $250 million and passed the latest Transformers headache to become the highest-grossing movie of the summer. Analysts are estimating that it will, within the week, overtake the Captain America sequel and The LEGO Movie for the title of the year’s biggest hit. Not bad for a bunch of Marvel second stringers.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles held strong in second place, its own wisecracking team of misfit heroes earning an additional $16.8 million, putting the reboot’s current total at $145 million. (For its already-confirmed sequel, Michael Bay and company would be wise to learn from Rodriguez/Miller’s mistakes and not wait nine years to get the thing into theaters.) Meanwhile, the only two wide release newcomers did modest business: While If I Stay ($16.35 million) proved that there’s still some appetite for movies adapted from books without pictures in them, the sports drama When The Game Stands Tall ($9 million) catered to jocks still holding onto an archaic belief that comic books are for nerds.
For more detailed numbers, visit Box Office Mojo.