Even with icy weather affecting the Southeast, “The Green Hornet” appears to have played to expectations for the four-day Martin Luther King holiday weekend.
The Sony Pictures action comedy is estimated to have grossed $40 million over the frame which is just slightly below industry pre-release polling. However, considering the studio thought the film was dead in the water just last summer, that’s still a major turnaround for the Seth Rogen reboot. Whether the film can actually make back its reported $125-150 million budget though remains to be seen.
Second place went to “The Dilemma” as the Ron Howard comedy (although you’d never know he directed it from the marketing) grossed just $21.1 million for the weekend. Considering James’ last three films all opened north of $34 million and Vaughn’s last two opened north of $31 million the fact their combined starpower couldn’t muster more excitement has to be someone disconcerting. Then again, landing just a 24% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes didn’t help either.
Still riding the range in third was the Coen Bros.’ “True Grit.” The Western collected another $13.1 million for a knockout $128.3 million to date.
Jumping into the fourth slot was “The King’s Speech” which expanded into 1,593 theaters and grossed a solid $11.1 million. The Oscar contender has found $46.7 million so far with lots of speeches still to come on the road to the Academy Awards.
“Black Swan” was just behind “Speech” with $10.3 million after jumping up to 2,300 plus theaters. Darren Aronofsky’s acclaimed thriller has a spectacular $75 million to date and is pirouetting its way to a $100 million lifetime gross.
Both “Speech” and “Swan” may see a slight bump this upcoming weekend thanks to the Golden Globe wins for Colin Firth and Natalie Portman.
Final box office results for the four-day weekend will be released on Tuesday.