Living in a Gangsta's Paradise

By Dustin Rowles | Box Office Round-Ups | January 12, 2011 |

By Dustin Rowles | Box Office Round-Ups | January 12, 2011 |

After all the setbacks, the bad buzz, and the (completely unnecessary and useless) 3D reshoots, Seth Rogen’s The Green Hornet ended up doing fairly well at the box office over the weekend, putting up $40 million over the four-day holiday. That actually makes it the biggest grossing opening weekend for a live-action superhero comedy. It was also good for the third biggest January opening, too. It looks like the decision to move it out of the late December box-office glut was a wise one.

Interestingly, director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) isn’t taking much credit for the success of The Green Hornet. He’s not distancing himself from the movie, but he is saying, “It’s not really my movie,” claiming that he didn’t have final cut and that Seth Rogen, in fact, forced a lot of decisions that Gondry wouldn’t have made, such as the entire “Gangsta’s Paradise” scene.

Meanwhile, the box-office combination of Kevin James and Vince Vaughn was a little poisonous as The Dilemma only eked out $20 million over the four-day weekend, a very poor showing compared to their last three openers, Couples Retreat, Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Grown Ups. It was also a very bad movie. In fact, that “controversial” gay joke pulled from the trailers was sadly the funniest scene in the movie.

In third place, falling from its number one perch, True Grit fell only 23 percent and put up another $12.5 million, bringing its overall total close to $130 million. Meanwhile, The King’s Speech added a lot of theaters and saw its gross rise 44 percent to $9 million, some of that at the expense of The Fighter , which fell to number nine. I think The Fighter is fading as it gets closer to the Oscars, taking it a little out of the race with Black Swan, The King’s Speech and frontrunner, The Social Network.

There was one other opener, The Heart Specialist. Agent Bedhead’s review will be up this afternoon, and I’m excited because I honestly have no fucking clue what this movie is or is about.