With Gridiron Gang, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has proved he’s able to make the leap from eyebrow-cooking wrestler-turned-actor to actual leading man. He’s also managed to make straightforward inspirational tale a box office winner. Admittedly, he had a little help: the true-life tale behind the Gang’s crims-turned-American footballers is a killer pitch (in more ways than one), but a $15 million opening is nothing to be sniffed at when the film was produced for around $30 million.
Also feeling in a celebratory mood (anyone who dislikes studio stats can skip on down to the next paragraph now) will be the folks at Sony, who can pop the champers corks on reaching the tenth number one opening in a year, snatching the record from, well, themselves (they managed nine in 2003).
Less jubilant was The Black Dahlia, Brian De Palma’s adaptation of James Elroy’s classy crime noir novel. Though given that it opened in almost a thousand fewer cinemas than Gridiron, it’s not doing too badly. Now we have to see if interest in the case can keep the takings holding up.
Swinging into third was Everyone’s Hero, a schmaltzy animated offering driven by the late Christopher Reeve. Sadly, despite it’s passion project status, the film hardly managed to grab the family crowd, and it took just $6.2 million. Still, it was more of a draw than Zach Braff’s emo noodlings in Tony Goldwyn’s The Last Kiss. It might have a killer, Braff-picked soundtrack and adverts on half the websites in America, but it just didn’t seem to click with audiences the way Braff’s own Garden State did. It managed $4.7 million.
The rest of the charts are holdovers from previous weeks. The Covenant’s powers failed it in its second outing, dropping to fifth with $4.7 million. Given its low opening figure (despite that being good enough to hand it the top spot), it’s not exactly a runaway smash. More a car smash.
Invincible is doing decent business, though Mark Wahlberg’s American footie drama naturally took a hut from the Rock’s arrival in the charts. The indie success stories continue to unfold, with both Little Miss Sunshine and The Illusionist hanging on in the middle, while George Reeves biopic Hollywoodland dropped like a stone, having made only $10.5 million so far. Finally, Crank sat at 10, with $24.4 million so far. Someone send Jason Stratham out to rob a bank to boost the figures – he could do with the rush.
If you only read one punch line between now and the next exclamation mark, make it The Charts!
Title
Weekend Gross
Total Gross
Week #
1
**Gridiron Gang
** $15,000,000
$15,000,000
1
2
**The Black Dahlia
** $10,362,000
$10,362,000
1
3
**Everyone's Hero
**
$6,150,000
$6,150,000
1
4
**The Last Kiss
**
$4,702,228
$4,702,000
1
5
**The Covenant
**
$4,700,000
$15,714,000
2
6
**Invincible
**
$3,904,000
$50,911,000
4
7
**The Illusionist
**
$3,751,000
$23,254,000
5
8
**Little Miss Sunshine
**
$3,350,000
46,390,000
8
9
Hollywoodland
$2,736,000
$10,536,000
2
10
Crank
$2,700,000
$24,414,000
3