The Crossover Box-Office Appeal, or Lack Thereof, of the Twilight Leads
By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under Box Office Round-Ups | Comments (25)
This week’s box-office was another test for the crossover appeal of the Twilight cast, as Robert Pattinson took another turn in a major picture, starring in Water for Elephants. The results weren’t exactly inspiring. In fact, for the three major stars whose careers were essentially created by Twilight — Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, and Robert Pattinson — the results haven’t been particularly encouraging at all. Granted, Elephants was only the sixth movie released starring one of the three outside of Twilight and Lautner — who only has a bit part in Valentine’s Day to his credit — is the one being pegged as the next big superstar from the group (he has a big action film, Abduction, out later this summer, is attached to a Michael Bay project, and at one point was linked to a Tom Cruise project).
The box-office grosses so far:
Valentine’s Day (Lautner): $110 million
Water for Elephants (Pattinson): $17 million opening weekend
Remember Me (Pattinson): $19 million
Adventureland (Stewart): $16 million
The Runaways (Stewart): $3.5 million
Welcome to the Rileys (Stewart): $158,000
Credit goes to Stewart for at least trying to use her Twilight success for the benefit of smaller films (she’s also due to star in an On the Road adaptation). Lautner obviously had little effect on Valentine’s Day, and I suspect the mediocre success of Water for Elephants can just as easily be attributed to Reese Witherspoon and the popularity of the novel upon which it was based.
In other words, it’s really too early to say. But I like saying it anyway: Nobody cares about these three beyond Twilight. My guess is that a similar pattern will befall the cast of Harry Potter in their post-Potter attempts at legitimacy.
Meanwhile, none of this has anything to do with the number one film at the box-office this weekend, Rio, which landed in the top spot again, holding well and racking up another $26.8 million to bring its two-week total to $82 million. Tyler Perry’s Big Happy Family grossed $25.8 million, which was good for Perry’s fourth best opening. I have plenty more to say about Perry in my review of Big Happy Family due later today (Monday).
In third place, Water for Elephants put up a respectable $17.5 million, far more than I expected given the painfully dull marketing of the film. Thanks to Easter weekend, Hop actually had an uptick in its 4th weekend, running past the $100 million mark. The news wasn’t so good for Scream 4, which plummeted 62 percent, grabbing only $7 million in its second weekend, dimming anyone’s hopes of another potential trilogy. It looks to make only half of what Scream 3 mustered.
Finally, African Cats, the Disney Wildlife Documentary that I didn’t even know existed until last week, landed in sixth with a solid $6.4 million. I suppose that means someone has to review the goddamn thing.
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Comments
Posted by: BarbadoSlim at April 24, 2011 11:15 PM
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