Yes, audiences were, in fact, just that into He’s Just Not That Into You. The star-studded romantic comedy won its opening weekend by a wide margin, grossing $27.5 million, according to Sunday’s early estimates.
That sum exceeds expectations, and it’s on par with the debut totals of distaff draws like The Devil Wears Prada ($27.5 mil) and last year’s winter hit 27 Dresses ($23 mil). While this is very good news for many folks surrounding the film — from actors like Ben Affleck and Drew Barrymore, who have had mixed financial track records of late, to the people behind Sex and the City, whose franchise helped inspire this movie — Jennifer Aniston may benefit most. The Friends alumna had never fully caught fire at the box office, but He’s Just Not That Into You now represents her second straight box office success, following Marley & Me, which has barked up more than $140 mil to date. Anyway, needless to say, the film drew a crowd that was a whopping 80 percent female and 60 percent over age 25. They gave it a B+ CinemaScore grade.
Taken (No. 2) enjoyed a super-strong second outing, with $20.3 mil, a miniscule decline of just 18 percent from its big Super Bowl weekend win. The Liam Neeson action thriller has banked $53.4 mil in 10 days. Meanwhile, the 3-D animated flick Coraline came in at No. 3 with $16.3 mil, which is a particularly sweet sum for an oddball family film on a crowded weekend.
Disappointing, however, was my pick for the weekend winner, The Pink Panther 2 (No. 4), which brought in a paltry $12 mil. That’s a substantially lower gross than anticipated and also significantly down from the $20.2 mil first weekend take of 2006’s The Pink Panther. And all despite drawing a crowd that was pretty much evenly spread out across all demographics and that gave The Pink Panther 2 a decent B+ CinemaScore review. Oh well.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop rounded out the top five, with $11 mil. And the weekend’s other big new release, the sci-fi flick Push, grossed a good-enough $10.2 mil at No. 6.
Overall, the cumulative box office total was up a huge 36 percent from the same frame a year ago, when Fool’s Gold led the way. And things may continue to look up as the week continues and the one-two shot of Friday the 13th and Valentine’s Day approach.
More Box Office News:
Box Office Preview: The Pink Panther 2 takes on He’s Just Not That Into You
EW.com’s Box Office Chart
Taken scores a touchdown
Paul Blart edges out Underworld 3 to win the weekend
Paul Blart: Mall Cop wins the weekend
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Ben Affleck need a career lift…and Jennifer Aniston is a movie star now …the world is coming to an end. i am gonna look at this movie for free on defspot.com place …i am not going pay to see this crap
Josh, did you get this weekly assignment simply because everybody else was busy, or nobody wanted it? Because quite frankly, though you may be a good writer, you simply s*ck at making anything close to an accurate projection, week after week. Like WAYYYYYY off.
…just wondering’ is all.
Nice. Thanks for the movie gross update.
I saw Coraline instead. I enjoyed the 3D visuals and the clay animation was amazing, but the movie was…odd. It offers a creepy vibe from nearly the beginning and just heads further into disturbing grounds as the movie progresses. The movie takes you to such a dark feeling that it can’t quite dig itself out by the end. Upon leaving the theater my friends and I could not even express an emotion or even a reaction to the movie. We were stunned into silence.
Rich’s shortsightedness is that he always assumes “if people showed up last time, they’ll show up this time.” And sometimes they’re just not that into what they saw a couple years ago.
Am I the only one who loves Jennifer Anniston? And thinks she deserves any and all success she has?
Oh well. More power to her.
Saw Coraline this weekend. Beyond brilliant movie. Stunningly made, the 3D aspect just made it that much better. It was very creepy, but in only the best sense. It never compromised itself, which is wonderful. Glad I saw it. Fantastic film and destined to be an animation classic.
Saw Coraline this weekend. Beyond brilliant movie. Stunningly made, the 3D aspect just made it that much better. It was very creepy, but in only the best sense. It never compromised itself, which is wonderful. Glad I saw it. Fantastic film and destined to be an animation classic.
“Aniston has never caught fire at the box office” – granted that she’s been in a few duds (and a few indies that were never going to make money) that statement doesn’t take into account the world-wide box office of Bruce Almighty (484 million), The Break-Up (204 million), and Along Came Polly (171 million). With the predictions and the writing, I wonder how you keep your job. And if you attribute the success of the movies to her male co-stars, she was in an ensemble movie this time. You really need to be more careful with your writing and predictions. I gave the first response to your prediction of Panther being at #1. I KNEW you were wrong and I have way less info than you do, Why do you do so poorly?
saw this movie – it was awful. wasted 2 hours of my life.
Just saw Taken. It was great. You have to see it.
HJNTIY will probably have a great run since there doesn’t seem to be another chick flick in the near future. And I am also surprise that Taken was able to hold on to #2 I really hope it can reach the $100 million mark.
And once again, Josh does not take responsibility for how off he was… AGAIN.
Would anyone of these “stars” be able to open a movie on their own (Drew? Ben? Jennifer?) I don’t think so.
Mr. Rich,
I am an amateur and the first thing I noticed was the incorrect information you provide. The second thing I realized is that others agree with me (so I am not crazy). Good thing you are just writing about movies. Otherwise, you would make a great propaganda “journalist.”
I have no idea why I read your predictions when its clear that you are about is real as a person who does horiscopes!!!
EW really needs to disable the comment option for box office predictions. People get up in arms about whether or not the writer was correct, as if it mattered one whit in their lives. It’s just a fun guessing game, nothing more.
Anitson’s only hit movies are where she is not the main star. All of her movies where she is the main star have flopped. People only saw Marly and me because of the dog the same goes for her hit movies where she is paired with a male box office star. But aleast she still gets steady work you can’t really say that about the other cast members of Friends.
Poor Joshua Rich, stop being so harsh to him people. Anyway, as for me, I want to watch HJNTIY because it’s one of the few feel-good films this year (remember we are anticipating films such as Wolverine, Watchmen, etc) and it’s star-studded. Then i would probably watch Push. All these are for my own entertainment…….. Thanks Mr. Rich for the box office update!
I saw this movie and it made me want to gouge my eyes out.. lol..
REAL NEWS: Why is it that the “Not So Mainstream Media” is BIASED? When a Democrat minority runs for office it is HISTORIC but when a Republican minority runs for office they attack and try to smear that person? Apparently they want us to believe that when Hillary, Pelosi, Obama ran for office it was HISTORIC but when Sarah Palin, Steele, Rice, Powell and Clarence Thomas run for public office they ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK. YOU PEOPLE ARE A BUNCH OF BRAIN DEAD DRONES.. PUT THE KOOL-AID DOWN…
Not a major surprise that “He’s Just Not That Into You” was the #1 movie. (Not a surprise to anyone except Joshuah Rich at all). The biggest surprise is PP2. Even I’m a little taken aback and how hard it flopped. (Then again, who WANTS to see that movie?)
REAL NEWS: Why is it that the “Not So Mainstream Media” is BIASED? When a Democrat minority runs for office it is HISTORIC but when a Republican minority runs for office they attack and try to smear that person? Apparently they want us to believe that when Hillary, Pelosi, Obama ran for office it was HISTORIC but when Sarah Palin, Steele, Rice, Powell and Clarence Thomas ran for public office all they did was ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK their reputations. YOU PEOPLE ARE A BUNCH OF BRAIN DEAD DRONES.. PUT THE KOOL-AID DOWN… YOUR COUNTRY IS BEING TAKEN OVER BY LIBERAL WEENIES!!
Ha, I called it here on Friday! I knew from the buzz I was seeing from so many women that HJNTIY would be the weekend’s #1, and I also called PP2 not doing well. I’ve never met one adult who said they were a fan of PP1, so no one was excited about it. I think “Coraline” benefitted from drawing in people who like their animination with an edge. I talked to several adults (fans of Tim Burton, *South Park,* etc.) who were excited to see it opening weekend, and it didn’t hurt that the movie got strong reviews (like the A grade in EW, which increased my desire to see it).
Push was fantastic.
Er, xinunus, this isn’t really the time or place. Oh, and Democrats rock.
Why you’d pick the Pink Panther 2 to win over “He’s not that into you” is beyond me. That movie had quite a fanbase already that was guaranteed to see it. I knew it would easily win, I was just wondering if the film would be in the 20 something million dollar range or the 40 and above million dollar range. I also knew that Taken would hold on strong because it has unanimously strong user reviews at yahoo and rotten tomatos (As at both of them critics). I won’t pretend though, you’re pretty good at picking usually, or at least descent.
but you made a mistake. “He’s not that into you” didn’t win by a wide margin because 7 million dollars is not a wide margin. That’s a relatively paltry seperation, especially considering taken was on second legs.