'Lion King' reigns supreme over 'Moneyball' and 'Dolphin Tale'

By Sarah Sluis

For the second week in a row, the re-release of The Lion King (which included 3D screens) grabbed the most box office, finishing with $22.1 million, a dip of 26%. The success of Disney's classic animated tale will surely inspire other studios to scramble to find movies in their libraries to re-release and add more to their bottom lines. However, The Lion King is part of a rarefied group. With the extra $60 million the movie has earned, it's now the twelfth-highest grossing movie of all time, domestically. In fact, The Lion King may make its way into the top ten if it stays in release for a couple more weeks.

According to weekend estimates, Moneyball currently has a narrow claim on second place over Dolphin Tale, earning $20.6 million to the third place finisher's $20.2 million. While the positive reviews at the Toronto Film Festival all but guaranteed that Moneyball would debut strongly, Dolphin Tale's success is a bit more of a surprise. The movie earned an A+ CinemaScore from viewers, the same high mark given by Soul Surfer's audience. Inspirational, PG-rated movies are something of a rarity in the market, and the addition of an injured dolphin to the formula (hearkening back to Free Willy) probably boosted returns even higher. Alcon Entertainment, which produced The Blind Side, was also behind Dolphin Tale. There's a certain group of movies about overcoming adversity that seem to hit a sweet spot with viewers. It can't be a depressing, Precious level of adversity, but just enough to warm the heart. These kinds of movies (I'm thinking of Marley & Me, The Pursuit of Happyness, Soul Surfer, The Blind Side) have resonated widely with audiences.

Taylor Lautner should redouble his efforts in romances like the Twilight series because Abduction earned $11.2 million by wrangling up audiences that were 68% female and mostly under 25--the opposite of a normal action movie's demographics. However, considering critics gave the movie a 3% positive rating, an eight-digit opening weekend is probably the best this poorly received movie can hope for. Unsurprisingly, females under 18 gave the movie an A-, while everyone else's scores averaged out to a B-.

Killer Elite, the first effort from newbie distributor Open Road, finished on the low side of expectations with $9.5 million. Jason Statham is something of an action movie workhorse, but many of his other actioners have doubled this opening weekend, including The Mechanic and Transporter 3. Still, with its solid cast, which includes Robert De Niro and Clive Owen, this movie should do well in home markets.

The gay romance Weekend, which our critic David Noh raved about, should have planned for a bigger run. It earned $25,000 over the weekend to sold-out screenings at one theatre. Its performance in coming weekends should be strong, especially if it expands to other locations. Other specialty releases had more middling results. Machine Gun Preacher averaged $11,000 per screen at four locations. Cameron Crowe-directed rockumentary Pearl Jam Twenty did slightly better, averaging $12,700 per screen at seven locations.

This Friday, cancer comedy 50/50 will hit theatres along with romantic comedy What's Your Number?, the thriller Dream House and the faith-based drama Courageous.

Simba's back with surprising $29.3 million weekend for 'Lion King'

By Sarah Sluis

Seventeen years after the animated behemoth released, The Lion King in 3D easily assumed first place with $29.3 million. In comparison, 2009's 3D double feature of Toy Story and Toy Story 2, also a re-release, opened to just $12.4 million. Why such a difference? For one, The Lion King had a much longer waiting period between its release and re-release. There were no (theatrical) sequels to give audiences more time with Simba, Nala, Timon and Pumbaa, whereas the Toy Story re-release was more of a prelude to the next installment, Toy Story 3. Second, The Lion Kingplay is still running on Broadway--a sign of the series' continued appeal. Finally, the animated feature was returning in a wide-open market. The last family movie opened five weeks ago, Spy Kids 3, and the critically panned movie has barely earned $30 million since. The only other kid movie, period, still in release is the two-month-old The Smurfs. No wonder families were flocking to the G-rated title. There's nothing else out there.

Contagion moved down one rung to second place, keeping its second week fall to 35% and earning another $14.4 million. Good reviews and the interest of adult audiences should keep this film in the top ten for weeks to come.

Drive opened in third place with $11 million. The Ryan Gosling getaway car drive movie is extremely polarizing, which is a good thing in my book (I'm one of the movie's fans). Though critics gave the movie a 92% positive rating and 81% of Rotten Tomatoes audiences liked the movie, it received only a C- Cinemascore rating--extremely low for a film that has people gushing with praise. An un-Hollywood ending, violence, and the movie's '80s music score were among the things that confused audiences, and judging from these comments walkouts and surprised looks weren't unusual. It's pretty rare for a movie to generate this diversity of responses, so the box office totals of coming weeks will show if this will spell success or disaster for the unusual action thriller.

The remake of Straw Dogs failed to draw in new audiences. Only $5 million in tickets were sold, showing that not every remake of a revered film will result in a home run the second time around.

I Don't Know How She Does It had a tepid debut of $4.5 million. The target audience (80% female, 50% over 35) isn't known for seeing movies opening weekend, so it could hold well in coming weeks, but this movie is the kind that will heat up once it hits Netflix. The working moms in the movie were probably too busy taking their tykes to a showing of The Lion King.

This Friday, the slick sports drama Moneyball will hit theatres along with Abduction, starring Twlight's Taylor Lautner. Rounding out the offerings will be the action thriller Killer Elite and the dolphin-with-prosthetic-fin tearjerker Dolphin Tale.