“Shutter Island” Repeats As Weekend Box Office King
Strong openings from modestly budgeted films, Cop Out and The Crazies, weren’t enough to take down Leo and Marty. Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island repeated as the top film at the domestic box office for the second week in a row, hauling in $22.2 Million. That takes its overall haul to just a shade under $80 million, its reported budget, in about 10 days. Its success might have studios rethinking the month of February, which has typically been a dumping grounds with occasional exceptions, typically big Valentine’s Day rom-coms. It’s also refreshing to see a great movie do great at the box office, especially so early in the year.
Kevin Smith’s Cop Out was treated by critics about how Southwest Airlines recently treated him, but the Bruce Willis starrer still managed to pull in 18.6 million. This is a very strong showing for the poor man’s Lethal Weapon as it has nearly made its budget back ($30 million) as well.
Horror flick The Crazies raked in an impressive $16.5 million, and its overall production budget was roughly $20 million. This just shows that horror movies can continue to thrive if the script and production are there, even with the public being almost criminally overexposed to mass-produced scary movies.
In other news, Roman Polanski’s Ghost Writer made the most per screen for the second consecutive week, and the unstoppable Avatar became the first film to cross the $700 million threshold domestically.
This film is definately not boring. It is an edge of the seat psychological suspense thriller. It was set in the 50′s to make real the possibility of the type of experiment(s) that could be going on seem plausible. Other than that one would not know what year it was. Great film.