No one saw the winner of this past weekend’s box office coming, to the point that we didn’t even include the film in our Box Office Poll on Friday. Yup, The Help surprised everyone by beating out all of the new releases with $20.5 million, which was more than enough to take first place. Rise of the Planet of the Apescame in second with $16.3 million, followed not-so-closely behind by our three new releases. Out of the lot, Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World finished third with $12 million, while Conan the Barbarian ($10 million) and Fright Night ($8.3 million) rounded out the top five.
The biggest surprise of the week has to go to Fright Night, which should’ve put up a better showing considering the 3D factor and decent reviews (74% Fresh over at Rotten Tomatoes, which is actually slightly better than The Help). So how come no one went to see the film? Poor advertising? Too much Colin Farrell in the TV spots and not enough McLovin? And what about Spy Kids 4? Not only did the film have 3D, but it also had 4D (in the form of Aroma-Scope), and neither dimension helped it come even remotely close to the previous Spy Kids opening weekend of $33 million.
So what’s up? How come no one went to the movies this weekend? You can answer that question in the comments, and if you did go to the movies then feel free to rate the films you saw by voting in our polls below.
Erik is a leading movie commentator who has worked for outlets such as AOL Moviefone and Movies.com.
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