The Rock's Game Plan a winner
2007-10-01 08:30
Los Angeles - In a major upset,
the family comedy The Game Plan beat the terrorism thriller The Kingdom for honours at the weekend box office in North America, the Hollywood studios reported on Sunday.
The Game Plan, a Walt Disney Pictures release starring
former wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, sold about $22.7m
worth of tickets since opening on Friday.
Universal Pictures' The Kingdom, starring Jamie Foxx and
Jennifer Garner, followed with $17.7m in its first three
days.
Industry pundits had expected The Kingdom to open at No
1 with sales in the low-$20m range, with The Game Plan
kicking off in the high-teen millions.
Critics were underwhelmed by both films, but underserved
family audiences rushed to The Game Plan anyway.
Johnson plays a hard-partying professional football player
whose hedonistic lifestyle is interrupted by the arrival of the
eight-year-old daughter he never knew about.
His last three movies,
most recently 2006's Gridiron Gang, had opened in the $14m to $16m range.
Walt Disney Pictures, a unit of Walt Disney Co, has had
similar success turning action heroes into kid-friendly stars.
In 2005, the Vin Diesel comedy The Pacifier surprised
everyone by opening at No 1 with $30.6m.
The Kingdom, meanwhile, stars Foxx as the head of a small
team of FBI investigators who probe a horrific terrorist attack
against American civilians in Riyadh.
Last weekend's champ, the zombie horror Resident Evil:
Extinction, fell to No 3, followed by the comedy Good Luck Chuck and the Western 3:10 to Yuma.