February 5, 2013 by Vinnie Leduc
As Beyoncé fired up the Super Bowl over the weekend, zombie rom-com Warm Bodies heated up the domestic box office with an opening that easily bested last week‘s reigning champ Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, which dropped to second. The other two newcomers, Bullet to the Head and Stand Up Guys, both bombed. Bullet to the Head’s debut, Sylvester Stallone’s worst ever in attendance numbers, even trailed the opening of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Last Stand and couldn’t crack the top five.
The flops by the Governator’s The Last Stand, Jason Statham’s Parker, and now Sly’s Bullet to the Head in three straight weeks could suggest that the only surefire way to bank on these action stars is to round them all up in one movie, à la The Expendables 2, even if the movie sucks and one of the worst of 2012. We’ll get a better idea in a couple of weeks when Bruce Willis returns as John McClane in A Good Day to Die Hard, although Willis will definitely benefit from franchise recognition.
After ruling the box office last month, both Jessica Chastain films, horror movie Mama and Oscar-nominated military thriller Zero Dark Thirty, dropped to fourth and fifth, respectively, conceding third to the Oscar-nominated romcom Silver Linings Playbook.
Here were the top five via BOM:
- Warm Bodies — Weekend Gross: $19.8 million — Total Gross: $19.8 million (new)
- Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters — Weekend Gross: $9.4 million — Total Gross: $34.7 million (#1 last week)
- Silver Linings Playbook — Weekend Gross: $7.7 million — Total Gross: $80.0 million (#4 last week)
- Mama — Weekend Gross: $6.6 million — Total Gross: $58.1 million (#2 last week)
- Zero Dark Thirty — Weekend Gross: $5.2 million — Total Gross: $77.7 million (#3 last week)
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