“The Game Plan” Makes Rock-Solid Box Office Debut
Posted September 30, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has what some might call “it” and that showed over the weekend when Disney’s ” The Game Plan,” which stars Johnson as a quarterback who meets a daughter he never knew he had, opened as the top weekend flick with $22.7 million.
In what was supposed to be a showdown against Universal’s Mid-East thriller ” The Kingdom” Johnson proved to have too much star power, and the Jennifer Garner and Jamie Foxx vehicle fell short with a $17.7 million opening.
The previous weekend’s top movie, ” Resident Evil: Extinction,” fell a steep 66 per cent from its opening-weekend gross, finishing in third place with $8 million and raising its total to $36.8 million.
Johnson is the latest action hero aiming to broaden his audience with a family film. With a PG rating, “The Game Plan” snapped a long stretch without any kid-friendly movies.
“There was definitely pent-up demand for people who don’t necessarily want to go to the heavy R-rated films,” said Chuck Viane, head of distribution for Disney. “The entire general audience has been underserved lately.”
“The Kingdom,” on the other hand, likely suffered from being too serious a commentary about the ongoing war on terrorism to bring in a wide range of movie fans.
“If you’re going to tell stories like this, you’re going to tell stories of what’s actually going on in our world. It’s very difficult, challenging subject matter,” said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal. “Either you’re going to like this kind of movie or you’re not.”
It was the second straight weekend that Hollywood business was down after a summer of record numbers. The top 12 movies took in $76.7 million, an 11 per cent drop from the same weekend last year.
“What goes up must come down,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. “It would be really difficult to maintain three, four months of up box office, so this was kind of inevitable. It was quite a strong fall last year, so we’re having a little trouble competing.”
Here’s the rest of the weekend’s top 10, with all figures estimated according to Media By Numbers LLC.
1. “The Game Plan,” $22.7 million.
2. “The Kingdom,” $17.7 million.
3. “Resident Evil: Extinction,” $8 million.
4. “Good Luck Chuck,” $6.3 million.
5. “ 3:10 to Yuma ,” $4.2 million.
6. “The Brave One,” $3.8 million.
7. “Mr. Woodcock,” $3 million.
8. “Eastern Promises,” $2.9 million.
9. “Sydney White,” $2.7 million.
10. “Across the Universe,” $2.05 million.
