It’s taken five instalments, but it now seems like Jigsaw has finally met his match – in the form of a group of all-singing, all-dancing kids after High School Musical 3: Senior Year beat Saw V to the top spot at the US box office.
Making its bow on the big screen, after the first two TV movie instalments had seemingly been seen by every man, woman and tween on the planet, Kenny Ortega’s bouncy musical wasn’t quite the box office juggernaut some had expected, but its $42 million take is not to be sniffed at. Time will tell if the movie can make it to the hundred million mark, but word is that Disney is on the verge of greenlighting more episodes – without the likes of Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens.
Which is also almost certainly to be the case with Saw. Although the word was that Saw V was going to be the last instalment in the highest-grossing horror franchise of all time, expect that to change after Saw V pulled in an estimated $30 million over its opening weekend.
Rather impressively, that’s down just $1 million on Saw IV’s opening weekend from a year ago, so this is one franchise that doesn’t seem to suffer from the law of diminishing returns.
The other new entry to breach the top ten this weekend was Gavin O’Connor’s cop drama, Pride & Glory. The Colin Farrell/Ed Norton-starrer pulled in a seemingly disappointing $6 million, but after being held back for a while owing to the Warner Bros. assimilation of New Line, that’s actually not a bad tally.
With Oscar season right around the corner, a couple of hopefuls debuted in limited release this weekend – Clint Eastwood’s Changeling pulled in $500,000 from just 15 screens, while Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York grossed $173,000 after opening in Los Angeles and, of course, New York.
Last week’s number one, Max Payne, dropped almost 60% and now has just under $30 million after two weeks. The Fox videogame adaptation will now struggle to hit $40 million, let alone $50 million.
Next week could see the biggest opening weekend of Kevin Smith’s career, with Zack And Miri Make A Porno opening on 3,000 screens. With Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks in the lead roles, and an enticing hard R rating, expect the Apatow crowd to flock to this one. Empire has always been a big fan of Smith, and we wish him well – it’s about time he had a breakout hit.