Box Office Review: Romance conquers all

By Scott Rosenberg Jun 5, 2006, 2:41 GMT

The mutants did not need “the cure” to disintegrate their numbers. 

All they needed was a second week up against Jen and Vince to break their hold on world domination.

The romantic comedy, ‘The Break-Up' ran away at the box-office, preliminary numbers showing that it took in an estimated $38.1 million at 3,070 locations – the third highest gross ever for its genre behind ‘Hitch’ and ’50 First Dates’.

"I'm just so happy about ‘The Break-Up’," said Nikki Rocco, Universal's president of distribution. "I think everyone in the industry, based on the tracking, expected it to be $25 million to $30 million. But if you take a look at the lineup of films that have been doing business, there's nothing like it.

We've been very successful with Jennifer Aniston before, with ‘Bruce Almighty’ and ‘Along Came Polly.’ You put her in the right vehicle and she's a draw. I think the public genuinely likes her and Vince Vaughn."

As expected, Universal’s exit polls showed the majority of ‘The Break-Up’s audience were women over 30 years old. They cited “humor” and and wanting to see Ms. Aniston and Mr. Vaughn act together as reasons for seeing the movie.

Meanwhile, while tragic love between Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Phoenix (Framke Janssen) saved the world, it did not help ‘X-Men: The Last Stand,’ as it made the largest post-Memorial Day opening drop on record -dripping  67% , taking in $34.4 million and landing in second place.

But all was not doom and gloom for the Marvel/Fox actioner as its total box-office climbed to $175.7 million, a number that “X-Men2” took 18 days to reach. Number crunchers now expect “The Last Stand” to fade-out at around $250 million.

DreamWorks Animation’s ‘Over the Hedge’ dropped only 24% in its third weekend, taking in $20.6 million to land in third place. It was a stronger post-Memorial Day hold than DreamWorks' past hits Madagascar or the two Shreks, although its grosses are lower – total take at $112.4 million.

With Disney/Pixar’s ‘Cars’ opening this coming weekend, 'Over the Hedge’ may soon fade off the charts.

In fourth place, Sony's adaptation of the bestselling novel, ‘The Da Vinci Code’, now in its third week fell 43% to $19.3 million.

Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ picked up another $1.3 million at only 77 theaters.  With $1.9 already taken in and Paramount Classics doubling the amount of theaters to 150 this coming weekend (from the top 10 to top 25 national markets) followed by a major expansion on June 16th to 450 screens, the movie continues to impress number crunchers ranking nine this past weekend.

Robin Williams is still driving his ‘RV’, but considering it lost 300 theaters it only dropped 21% to take-in $3.3 million.

Smaller new releases performed so-so.

The first Korean movie to open on a limited release, the actioner ‘Typhoon’ did an unimpressive $48,216.

‘District B-13’, a Luc Besson, French sci-fi actioner did a poor $410,000 at 151 locations.

While ‘The War Tapes,’ a documentary shot by soldiers in Iraq, took in $13,205 at one theater in New York.   

The good news – according to numbers recorded by Nielsen, overall weekend take was up 4% from a year ago helping 2006 box office jump ahead of 2005’s take by 3%.