Ouch. The Karate Kid gave The A-Team quite a beating at the box office. What was expected to be a close race turned out to be quite the blowout with Jaden Smith snatching up $56 million as compared to Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Rampage Jackson and Sharlto Copley’s disappointing $26 million. This is a massive miss for Fox especially considering Sony’s product cost about $70 million less to put together. Fox better keep its fingers crossed the folks overseas are more receptive to massive amounts of action and explosions to ensure they get back their $110 million.
The Karate Kid’s stellar performance also means the time has come for Shrek Forever After to step down and let new material take the box office spotlight. The film dropped 38% percent taking in $15.8 million bringing its grand total to $210 million. Yes, it sounds like a nice chunk of money, but the fourth film is still lagging far beyond its predecessors save for the very first film which only had $176.1 million in its fourth week. By this point the third had amassed $281.5 million and the second a whopping $353.3 million.
Get Him to the Greek’s $10.1 million earned it the fourth position while Killers rounds out the top five with $8.1 million. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remains just shy of breaking even earning $6.6 million in week three taking its grand total to $72.3 million. Toss in the international haul and that brings the worldwide gross to $190.3 million, just below its $200 million budget. Marmaduke took a 48% hit earning just $6 million while Sex and the City 2 nabbed $5.5 million bringing its domestic total to $84.7 million.
Iron Man 2 is still holding on in week six adding another $4.6 million while Splice took a big blow dropping 61% and only taking in $2.9 million. Closing out the top ten is Robin Hood with $2.7 million and Letters to Juliet with $1.6 million.
Hopefully Smith and Jackie Chan are enjoying The Karate Kid’s success while it lasts because next week Toy Story 3 and Jonah Hex are moving in and one, if not both, will certainly knock it off its pedestal.
By Perri Nemiroff (via Box Office Mojo)
