Anyone expecting a wind-down of our current superhero cycle will have to wait a while. The stink of failure had been trailing The Green Hornet for many months, as talk of reshoots and delays tagged it as “a troubled production” even before Sony chose to release it in the January dumping ground. Reviews were accordingly toxic (a 38 on Metacritic, a 43% on the Tomatometer), with most citing co-writer/star Seth Rogen and director Michel Gondry’s creative incompatibility. Yet The Green Hornet is a movie about a superhero, however obscure, and thus it surpassed any reasonable expectations, cruising into first with $34 million on its opening weekend. That left the normally bankable Vince Vaughn to limp into second with his odd comedy/marital psychodrama The Dilemma, which took $17.4 million in its debut.
Not much action in limited release. The star-laden Barney’s Version, for which Paul Giamatti won a Golden Globe last night, performed well despite merely respectful reviews, earning $17,925 per screen on four screens. Far less auspicious was Every Day, a mid-life crisis drama starring Liev Schreiber, Helen Hunt, Carla Gugino, and Brian Dennehy. Taking only $3,300 per screen on three screens, it’ll have to wow people with its utter mediocrity on DVD.
For more detailed numbers, visit Box Office Mojo.