Weekend Box Office: This kitten has claws (that have been trimmed) (because the movie didn't do that well)

By Scott Tobias | October 31, 2011 | 2:06pm

Aux Features Film

Despite building an entire movie around the most tolerable character in the last few Shrek movies, the would-be DreamWorks animated juggernaut Puss N Boots opened softer than Rocky before the Ivan Drago fight. Though $34 million was more than enough to win the weekend, nearly double the total of runner-up Paranormal Activity 3, it was a lower opening figure than any DreamWorks animated film in five years. The sci-fi thriller In Time didn’t light it up, either, taking $12 million despite a catchy premise and the reliably bankable Justin Timberlake in the lead. Also on the losing end was The Rum Diary, which seized on the non-success of the last Johnny Depp/Hunter S. Thompson adaptation Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas by not succeeding a second time. With $5 million, the long-delayed film landed in fifth place, though the Depp/Thompson pairing, coupled with Withnail And I director Bruce Robinson, could win it some cult approval somewhere down the line.

In limited release, the Transatlantic love story Like Crazy enjoyed one of the year’s biggest arthouse debuts, with $30,000 per screen on four screens for $120,000. News was considerably less heartening for Anonymous, Roland Emmerich’s stupid piece of Shakespeare birtherism, which hit $1 million on its first weekend, but opened on 265 screens for an iffy $3,774 per outlet. Also soft: The Richard Gere-Topher Grace thriller The Double, which could only scrape together $2,500 per screen on 11 screens.