'The Lego Movie' assembles boffo weekend figures

The Lego Movie enjoyed a stellar four days this President’s Day weekend. The animated film that’s a hit with both kids and adults earned a pretty darn awesome $63.5 million Friday-Monday. It grossed $50 million from the weekend alone, which tallies out to a slight 28 percent drop from last weekend. To compare, similar title The Lorax dipped 45 percent its second weekend in theatres.  The Lego Movie has earned $143.8 million to date.

The rest of the weekend’s titles more or less stacked up as expected.  About Last Night landed just behind Lego with $25.7 million. This second consecutive hit (after Ride Along) for comedian Kevin Hart had the best opening for a rom-com since another Hart title, Think Like a Man, debuted to $33.6 million in 2012. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the film’s viewers were female (63 percent) and skewed older (57 percent were over the age of 30).

RoboCop failed to meet Sony’s initial projection of $35 million for the four-day spread. Instead, the sci-fi remake earned a slightly disappointing if still solid $21.7 million. Audiences were 62 percent male and 64 percent over the age of 25, and awarded the movie a CinemaScore rating of a B+. Odds are RoboCop will eventually bow out to the tune of $60 or $70 million.

The Monuments Men made the Top 5 as predicted, though it took the No. 4 and not the No. 5 slot as many had expected. Men is now George Clooney’s most successful outing as a director, and it grossed $15.5 million over the past four days. The weekend’s earnings have bumped The Monuments Men’s cume to $44.2 million.

It was Endless Love that took the weekend’s No. 5 spot, earning $13.2 million. The vast majority of that four-day gross – over 56 percent of it – came from Valentine’s Day ticket sales, which means Love can now boast one of the most front-loaded openings over. Eighty percent of viewers who paid good money to watch pretty young things love, lust and, well, look pretty, were female, and 76 percent were under the age of 25. They generally liked what they saw, awarding the movie an A- CinemaScore grade. Endless Love’s heavily front-loaded debut, however, portends a steep drop in the weeks ahead.

But at least Love can say it enjoyed one good weekend, which is one more than fellow romance Winter’s Tale. The adaptation of Mark Helprin’s beloved and perhaps too sprawling novel was a categorical bomb with its $7.3 million debut. That figure landed Tale at No. 7, plunking it down behind enduring success Ride Along. Writer-producer-director Akiva Goldsman’s misfire will likely fade out within the next few weeks or so.

Audiences swoon for 'Valentine's Day'

By Sarah Sluis

Valentine's Day swept the holiday weekend with an estimated $66.8 million gross over the four-day period, exceeding industry expectations. The timely romantic comedy built on its audience through the weekend, peaking on the titular Sunday holiday before dropping by half on Monday. The movie handily beat the $52 million box-office record for President's Day weekend, set by Ghost Rider in 2007. With an expired holiday in the title, the movie's week-over-week future is more uncertain, but its strong opening created a high mountain to slide down.

The Wolfman and Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief were neck and neck through Sunday, with about $31 million apiece, but Percy Jackson pulled ahead during the Monday school holiday to finish with $38.7 million for the four-day weekend. Given The Wolfman's multiple delays and underwhelming reviews, Universal is probably breathing easy about its $36.4 million opening weekend--even if it isn't close to recouping the movie's $100 million-plus production costs.

Directed by Chris Columbus (who kicked off the Harry Potter series), Percy Jackson, which is based on a series of children's books, could still be the beginning of a film franchise. However, the scale may have been too large. With a $95 million production budget, this movie seems to have been imagined for a Harry Potter-size audience instead of one much smaller, and a $38 million opening weekend won't be enough to make a film that expensive worthwhile.

Beyond the top ten, Fox Searchlight scored an impressive debut with My Name is Khan, a Bollywood production about "an Indian in America battling the double whammy of living with Asperger's Syndrome and as a Muslim man in the post-9/11 world," according to the THR review by Kirk Honeycutt. The romantic drama placed thirteenth with a $2.2 million estimated gross over the four-day weekend. With a targeted 120-theatre release, I suspect that Fox Searchlight cherry-picked its locations based on data from the run of Slumdog Millionaire, the Indian-themed movie that swept the Oscars last year.

Searchlight also placed a film in the top ten with Crazy Heart, which expanded to 1,005 locations and brought in $4.2 million for a ninth place finish. The movie, which stars Jeff Bridges in an Oscar-nominated role, has seen the biggest box-office boost due to its nominations, in part because it released just before the Oscar cutoff date and is still a fresh title.

Among returning films, Avatar headed the pack with a $30 million gross over four days, propelling the movie up 31% from last week (for four days) and 3% (for three days).

Even with tough competition from Valentine's Day, romantic weepie Dear John held on with another $18.8 million. Kid-friendly Tooth Fairy benefited from family crowds on Monday and dropped just 9% to $7.7 million.

This Friday, another delayed movie, Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, will make its debut into a wide-open field. Only holdovers and small releases, including a four-theatre unveiling of Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer, will serve as competition.

Crowded box office with 'Valentine's Day,' 'Wolfman' and 'Percy Jackson'

By Sarah Sluis

The leader of the pack this weekend is Valentine's Day (3,665 theatres), which shares its name with the holiday this Sunday. With the added bonus of the Monday President's Day holiday, when schools and many workplaces are closed, the movie is poised to take advantage of couples and singles mooning over the lovey-dovey storyline. Plus, Valentine's Day is a kind of informal sequel along the lines of Love Actually and, to a greater extent, He's Just Not That Into You. The success of those ensemble-style romantic comedies, now a budding genre, will give people an idea of what to expect and encourage fans of the previous movies to catch this one. Variety predicts Valentine's Day will open to $45 million, measurably more than He's Just Not That Into You's $27 million gross over a normal three-day weekend. Reviews, however, have not been kind. But for people in search of a topical diversion, this sup-par box of chocolates may be the best story out there.

A Harry Potter wannabe, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (3,356 theatres) has the ingredients to be "a modest hit with the eight to 12-year-old set," according to critic Ethan Alter, but not the crossover success of Harry Potter. Packed with characters from Greek mythology and Homer's tales, the movie has some modern updates Alter liked, including an iPod screen to reflect the image of Medusa and placing the Lotus Eaters inside a Las Vegas pleasure den. With only two-week-old Tooth Fairy as competition, Percy Jackson is in an envious position to scoop up the family crowd.

The Wolfman (3,222 theatres) has been delayed numerous times, giving off a decaying aroma easily detected by wolfhound critics. Alter notes that "the finished product feels less like a complete feature film than a series of compromises between Universal and the filmmakers." Despite a star cast featuring Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Emily Blunt, the performers are either unable to rise to the material or the material does not rise to them. With strong interest among males, however, the movie will probably finish in the top three.

On Tuesday, I'll recap the long weekend and find out if Valentine's Day wooed enough moviegoers, and if Percy Jackson and The Wolfman were able to entice their respective audiences.