For the second weekend in a row the Kevin Hart and Ice Cube comedy Ride Along took the top spot at the domestic box office and it didn’t really face any competition whatsoever.
Ride Along brought in $21.1 million, followed closest by Universal’s Lone Survivor with $12.6 million while the lone new wide release, Lionsgate’s I, Frankenstein scored only a sixth place finish with $8.2 million from 2,753 theaters. If you were wondering, that’s $3 million less than the abomination, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein made back in 1994, when, on average, tickets cost about $4.17 less than they do today.
The film scored a “B” CinemaScore, which isn’t really a good sign as anything “A-” or above can really be taken seriously in those terms, and I just hope the studios will start learning that a “gritty retelling” of a classic story with a budget of $68 million and a mid-level star such as Aaron Eckhart just isn’t a recipe for box office success. Sure, it’s a movie that might pass the time on the couch, but you can’t spend that much on something that looked as unimaginative and dumb as this movie looked.
Last weekend’s animated family feature The Nut Job held on quite nicely, dipping only 37% for a $12.3 mllion second weekend while Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit dropped 43% with an $8.8 million sophomore session.
Speaking of animated films, Disney’s Frozen has now crossed $800 million worldwide ($810.3 million) placing it in fifth position for 2013 behind Iron Man 3 ($1.2 billion), Despicable Me 2 ($954.2m), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ($855.9m) and The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug ($837.3m). Which I guess makes it the only non-franchise film in the top five.
In other news, Gravity expanded into additional theaters this weekend and, on the heels of Alfonso Cuaron winning with the Directors Guild, the film added another $2 million to its domestic total, which is now up to $261 million.
And finally, Vanessa Hudgens‘ new film, Gimme Shelter managed $700,000 from 385 theaters.
Next weekend is another light one in terms of new releases, but I think That Awkward Moment will have more than enough juice to take the number one slot as Zac Efron, Michael B. Jordan and Miles Teller have to have enough collective mainstream appeal to make a little money in theaters.
