Well, maybe fabulous is used too loosely here but it is still appropriate considering loose is a fabulous word to describe Bruno too. BRUNO was expected to capture the top of the box office this weekend and the $14 million Friday take seemed to have sealed the deal. The 39% drop from Friday to Saturday put it all into question though. In was very tight in the end between BRUNO and the latest ICE AGE but BRUNO ultimately came out on top – puns fully intended.
BRUNO finished the weekend just north of $30 million, with a per screen average of over $11K. Universal rolled BRUNO out in a much more aggressive fashion than BORAT was unleashed back in the day. Star Sasha Baron Cohen was unproven at the time and therefore the film was released on under 1000 screens. It sold out nearly all weekend and scored somewhere just below $30 million total before the theatre count was tripled the following weekend. BRUNO made slightly more but did so on over 2700 screens with a per screen average that came in at less than half what BORAT did. Reviews are mixed and the general consensus is that BRUNO is not BORAT (or maybe that is just how I feel) so it isn’t likely that BRUNO will go on to match BORAT’s success. In a summer where THE HANGOVER, another R-rated comedy, can make over $200 million, BRUNO should have been bigger. Maybe America did not want to watch a particularly flaming homosexual for an hour and a half or perhaps the film just isn’t amazing. I cannot say for certain but I would not be surprised.
This week’s only other wide release was teen comedy, I LOVE YOU BETH COOPER. The film was completely dismissed by both critics and audiences alike, as it landed in 7th place with just $5 million. The bigger winners can be found below the Top 10. Iraq war films are infamously hard sells by Kathryn Bigelow’s THE HURT LOCKER is now a dark horse Oscar contender and it saw its gross expand by almost 375% as it added another 51 screens. I saw it last night, thoroughly enjoyed it and will be reviewing it later this week. The week’s biggest per screen average belonged to a quirky comedy about two guy friends who are making a porn that calls for them to have sex at some point. At least that’s what I got from the preview for HUMPDAY. The film opened on just two screens and pulled in an average of $14.5K. Check back on Black Sheep tomorrow for tickets to the Montreal premiere!
NEXT WEEK: HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE finally hits theatres after being delayed from last November. The film hits 4250 screens on Wednesday and will add a bunch more IMAX screens in a couple of weeks when TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN finishes its minimum four-week run. And this year’s summer hopeful from the folks at Fox Searchlight is the Sundance pleaser, 500 DAYS OF SUMMER. The modern romantic comedy starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel opens on 27 screens and expands in the weeks to follow.
Source: Box Office Mojo
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