‘VALOR’ EARNS $24.7M
FLIES HIGHEST AT BOX OFFICE,
It may have been Oscar weekend, but Hollywood stars were no match for real Navy SEALS at the box office.
Act of Valor, the action film featuring military personnel, pulled an upset at theaters by claiming $24.7 million and defeating films from Tyler Perry, Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd.
Analysts expected the R-rated homage to the military’s elite to make $14 million.
But tough reviews — 30% of critics gave Valor a thumbs-up, says Rottentomatoes.com — couldn’t slow the movie, which scored well with moviegoers. About 85% of audiences liked it, the amalgam site says.
The film took “a big risk by offering a new approach to entertainment” by featuring real special forces, says Gitesh Pandya of Boxofficeguru.com.
He says “TV spots, which have been action-packed,” helped lock up young male moviegoers, a target demographic that gave the movie an A, according to pollsters Cinemascore. Threequarters of the audience was male, says distributor Relativity Media.
“With a production budget of just $12 million, this is a total winner,” says Paul Dergarabedian of Hollywood.com.
The opening was enough to hold off Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds, which earned a solid $16 million, good for second place. Dergarabedian says the film saw a 25% increase in business from Friday to Saturday, an indication of “great word of mouth.”
Another movie getting audi- ences talking: Dwayne Johnson’s 3-D family film Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. The movie, which hasn’t budged from the top five in three weeks, took third place with $13.5 million and lifted its overall gross to $76.7 million.
Denzel Washington’s Safe House took fourth place with $11.4 million, followed by love story The Vow with $10 million.
Among the major newcomers, two films appear headed for video shelves early. Wanderlust, the comedy starring Aniston and Rudd, took eighth place with $6.6 million, half what ana- lysts expected. The Amanda Seyfried crime thriller Gone didn’t fare any better, mustering $5 million and ninth place. Final figures are out today. Valor helped keep ticket sales brisk. Revenue is up 18% over the same period last year, and attendance is up 20%.