Black Sheep @ The Box Office

My apologies for missing the box office last weekend.  It was my birthday weekend and I was a little wrecked on Sunday.  Just a little though.  I still had enough juice to check out HOT TUB TIME MACHINE, which I thought was plenty funny, if not a little too good to be true in the end.  Maybe casting Steve Carrell in the John Cusack part would have made for better box office because it seems like Carrell almost always does well.  Sure, DATE NIGHT is his lowest opener since THE FORTY-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN but it's not like that movie did him so bad.

DATE NIGHT, boosted certainly from Tina Fey followers as well, pulled in a strong $27 million debut to steal first place from CLASH OF THE TITANS and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, all three of which were in position to come in first after Friday's returns.  As far as Fey is concerned, this is definitely her strongest opening to date.  The new comedy dream team already have another project in the works and the success of this film will certainly help NBC's Thursday night viewership as well.  Meanwhile, TITANS crashed an expected 56% and DRAGON managed a strong hold, dropping off only 12%.

Elsewhere in the Top 10, the cancer drama, LETTERS TO GOD, managed to crack the list but barely with an unenthusiastic average of $1300 per screen.  Below the Top 10, the art house fare made very few waves.  Apparition Films celebrated Kristen Stewart's 20th birthday on Friday by adding 120 screens to the floundering run of THE RUNAWAYS.  The total was boosted over 130% but still only managed an average of $2300 per screen.  And with news of an impending American remake, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, continues limited success, pulling in another $550K on just 125 screens.

NEXT WEEK: Super heroes get a little less super in KICK-ASS, blasting out of their pajamas and onto 3000 screens.  Neil LaBute's remake of DEATH AT A FUNERAL with Chris Rock and Tracy Jordan will hopefully not die on 2400 screens.  And Demi Moore and David Duchovny try to keep up with THE JONESES on 190 screens.

Source: BOX OFFICE MOJO