Jacob Hall
When is a $70 million opening not a success? When its predecessor opened to $75 million four years ago. This is the predicament facing 'Star Trek Into Darkness,' which opened at number one at box office while being something of a disappointment.
No one expected 'The Great Gatsby' to take number one at the box office over 'Iron Man 3' this weekend, but it did the next best thing: it opened huge at number two. There is no shame in this silver medal.
Some will call this a slow weekend, but it may be better to think of it as the calm before the storm. Next week, the summer movie season begins and people are saving their pennies for 'Iron Man 3,' so it's not really surprising that this was an uneventful couple of days at the multiplex. At least the folks behind 'Pain and Gain' can be glad that their film led an otherwise quiet weekend.
Tom Cruise and science fiction are a powerful combination. Although the opening weekend of 'Oblivion' didn't break any records big or small, it's a more than solid start for a non-franchise, non-sequel, non-reboot. That's a sad statement on the current state of Hollywood, but that's another topic for another day.
Despite being the second largest film market in the world after the United States, China still enforces strict censorship laws regarding what can and can't be seen in its cinemas. The latest victim of Chinese censors is Quentin Tarantino's Oscar-winning 'Django Unchained,' which was yanked out of theaters on the first day of its release.
If someone glanced at this weekend's box office, they could be forgiven for thinking they accidentally stepped into some kind of time portal. After all, films called 'Evil Dead' and 'Jurassic Park' were in the top five.
Like any holiday that sees families congregating together and then desperately seeking activities where they don't have to talk to each other for two hours, this Easter weekend saw a strong bump at the box office thanks to a few new contenders and a handful of holdovers with some surprising staying power.
You can't imagine two films more different than 'The Croods' and 'Olympus Has Fallen,' but right now the two of them sit on top of the box office chart, both temporarily linked by the fact that a bunch of people apparently wanted to see them this weekend. It's the first time in forever that two films have opened to over $30 million at the same time...but it wasn't golden for all of the new releases.
After a series of increasingly dire weeks at the box office, 'Oz the Great and Powerful' arrived and shook things up in a major way, earning the first truly massive opening weekend of 2013 and setting the table for all kinds of Oz-related content in the near future. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is something that we'll let you judge.