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Spartans spoof conquers Rambo
28/01/2008 11:37 - (SA)
San Francisco - It turns out that Rambo
is no match for a bunch of silly Spartans.
Meet the Spartans, a parody of the ancient Greek warriors
lionised in last year's hit 300, topped the North American
weekend box office with $18.7m, emerging victorious over
the return of Sylvester Stallone's signature action hero.
"I think everyone expected Rambo to be No 1," said Paul
Dergarabedian, president of Media by Numbers that compiles box
office projections.
"There are definitely a lot of serious films out there now
but there was a big enough audience looking to have silly,
mindless fun at movie theatres," Dergarabedian said.
Over the same weekend last year, another parody from News
Corp-owned Twentieth Century Fox, Epic Movie, led the box
office with an almost identical haul to Meet the Spartans.
"Fox has sort of perfected the art of the spoof movie
released at this time," Dergarabedian said.
Box office champ
According to estimates for the United States and Canada
issued on Sunday, Lionsgate's Rambo debuted at No 2 with
$18.2m, while last week's box office champ,
rampaging-monster flick Cloverfield, fell to No 4 with a
take of $12.7m.
Paramount's Cloverfield was expected to lose some of its
punch since a strong word-of-mouth marketing campaign was
expected to have motivated many viewers to see it on its
opening weekend.
Another new entrant was Sony's cyber-thriller
Untraceable, which opened at No 5 with $11.2m.
Critically acclaimed There Will Be Blood jumped into the
top 10 for the first time, earning the eighth spot with $4.9m after Paramount Vantage expanded the number of theatres
to nearly 900.
Ruthless Texas oilman
Starring Daniel Day-Lewis as a ruthless Texas oilman,
There Will Be Blood had a low-key debut late last year but
has gathered steam after it got eight Oscar nominations.
"These are great results, it's No 8 in the marketplace
with a limited release. We're just seeing a sort of wonderful
response across the country," said Rob Schulze of Paramount
Vantage.
Spartans was one of five films in the top 10 that played
for laughs.
Romantic comedy 27 Dresses, also from Twentieth
Century Fox, fell one spot to No 3 with $13.6m while
oops-I'm-pregnant film Juno from Fox Searchlight dropped two
spots to No 6 with $10.3m, putting it over the $100m mark since its Christmas release.
Female heist movie
The Bucket List, a widely panned comedy from Warner Bros
pairing Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as adventure-seeking
cancer patients, was No 7 with $10.2m while female
heist movie Mad Money came in at No 10 with $4.6m.
Mad Money was the debut release of Overture Films, a unit of
Liberty Media Corp.'s cable TV operator Starz LLC.
Disney's National Treasure: Book of Secrets dug up a
little more box office gold, with its $4.7m making it
good enough for No 9.
The Nicholas Cage adventure has raked in
$205.4m since its December release.
- Reuters
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South Africa
