'Game Plan' wins weekend
Disney film rules over Universal's 'Kingdom'
By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK; Variety Online
Disney had the winning game at the weekend box office, with family
laffer "The Game Plan" easily grabbing the keys to the
castle from Universal's Middle Eastern geopolitical drama "The
Kingdom."
"Game Plan," toplining Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson
and sporting a kid-friendly PG rating, exceeded expectations in
grossing an estimated $22.7 million from 3,103 runs.
Director Peter
Berg's R-rated "Kingdom" grossed an estimated
$17.7 million from 2,793 runs. Film stars Jaime Foxx, Chris Cooper,
Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman.<p>
Two pics got off to a close race on Friday, but all bets were off
as "Game Plan" saw a whopping 63% jump from Friday to
Saturday, compared to a 16% bump for "Kingdom."
Weekend's other wide opening, MGM-Lakeshore's "The Feast of
Love," struggled to cook up an aud, grossing an estimated
$1.7 million from 1,200 runs. Pic couldn't crack the top 10, coming
in No. 11.
On the specialty side, comedy also ruled, with
Fox Searchlight and Wes Anderson's "The Darjeeling Limited" nabbing
the highest per-screen average of the year at $70,000. Pic, starring
Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Adrien Brody, grossed $140,000
from two runs in Gotham on Saturday and Sunday after opening the
New York Film Festival on Friday.
But there also was plenty
of interest in Ang Lee and Focus Features' erotic period pic "Lust,
Caution," which grossed an estimated
$61,688 from an exclusive run in Gotham. Film, rated NC-17, nabbed
one of the best per screen averages ever for an exclusive opening,
as well as for a foreign language film.
Read the full article at: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117973054.html
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