'No Strings Attached' reels in female audiences

By Sarah Sluis

The sex-first/romance-second comedy No Strings Attached overperformed this weekend, tipping over the twenty million mark to finish with $20.3 million. 70% of the turnout was female. Star Natalie Portman hasn't really done anything in the romantic comedy genre, so this shows she can come across as an appealing, likeable heroine to female viewers.

In its second week, The Green Hornet dove 46% to $18.1 million. Its performance is better than last year's fanboy extravaganza Kick-Ass, and has also held onto audiences better than star Seth Rogen's stoner comedy Pineapple Express. Might there be buzz of a sequel soon?

Director Peter Weir's The Way Back drew in paltry audiences despite positive reviews and a well-known cast. With $1.4 million in receipts, the Siberian prison-escape movie finished outside of the top ten due to its meager $2,100 per-screen average.

The Weinstein Co.'s The Company Men fared better, averaging $7,300 per screen on its 106 playdates. By comparison, however, this season's heavy-hitters were averaging $20,000-$40,000 per screen before expanding, so this is not a film that's going to be in for the long haul. Count this as one strikeout in the Weinstein Co.'s rebounding batting average.

Among platform releases in the top ten, The King's Speech showed the most traction, holding onto fourth place and $9.1 million by sliding just .2% from last week while adding a conservative 137 screens for a still-small 1,637-screen run. True Grit and Black Swan both fell in the 25% range, posting $8 million and $6.2 million weekends, respectively. The Fighter followed with $6.5 million and a smaller 11% drop from the previous week.

IFC's The Housemaid brought in a strong $18,000 per screen at two locations, a sign this movie will perform well across all of IFC's platforms, including on-demand.

This Friday, Jason Statham-led action film The Mechanic will open alongside the religious-tinged horror movie The Rite. A targeted release of From Prada to Nada, a romantic comedy from Lionsgate's Latino-focused Pantelion Films, will also enter the arena.

Paramount pulling for 'No Strings Attached'

By Sarah Sluis

Leading this weekend's releases is the Ashton Kutcher/Natalie Portman romantic comedy No Strings Attached (3,012 theatres). Although there's a cute supporting flock (Mindy Kaling, Lake Bell, Greta Gerwig), the romance between Portman and Kutcher is "laugh deficient," and "we're really not sure we'd want to go home with this movie," critic Frank Lovece concludes. Still, there's some intrigue to seeing Portman, a recent Golden Globe winner, in her first true romantic comedy. As an added bonus, her character is no shrinking violet. Without any similar competition in the marketplace, the laugher should approach $20 million.

Director Peter Weir takes on a true story that was later revealed to be fake in The Way Back (650 theatres). The film chronicles the pre-WWII journey of seven prisoners who escape a Soviet gulag and trek to India, a British territory. Critic Rex Roberts lamented that the movie falls just short. "All the elements for an award-garnering motion picture seem in place�an accomplished cast and crew, majestic landscapes to serve as stage sets, and a celebrated director whose sensibility perfectly suits the material�all except one, but one that makes all the difference: dramatic tension." The talented actors (including Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, and Saoirse Ronan) and director partially save a movie that ends up being a "curious combination of the inspiring and the tedious."

The Company Men (106 theatres) is a recession-themed drama centered on downsizing among the privileged corporate set. Director John Wells has a strong television background, but "feature film technique seems to have baffled him," critic Daniel Eagan observes. While unemployed workers should be ripe for audience empathy, "the lead characters are so distinctly unlikeable and weak that the performers can't do much with their roles, no matter how carefully they act," Eagan concludes.

The Korean-language remake of the country's 1960s classic The Housemaid (2 theatres) debuts at IFC theatres. Critic Doris Toumarkine faulted the suspense tale because "it doesn't advance this sub-genre in any way or uncover anything more than familiar naughty behavior." That's true. However, I count myself as one of the audience members she suspected might "get a charge out of the relatively exotic modern Korean settings," which include depictions both of Korea's upper class and underclass.

On Monday, we'll see if audiences fell for No Strings Attached and if this debut film was able to beat the second weekend of comic book hit The Green Hornet.