While box office-watchers widely expected the battle for first to be between Lesbian Vampire Killers and the new Julia Roberts/Clive Owen film Duplicity, they failed to fully account for the family-friendly tickets. Marley & Me took top honors, followed by Paul Blart: Mall Cop then Duplicity and finally LVK.
The lads film opened strong on Friday, attracting it’s core audience of young males to the theaters and pulling into an early 3rd place. However, as the weekend finished up, Duplicity took a £150,000 lead. Speculation for the slump includes “the viewing patterns of young males, and grosses may have also wilted in the spring sunshine. But poor word-of-mouth may be an additional factor in the dip.”
Lesbian Vampire Killers has been the focus of intense critical blood lust, with poor reviews in many media. It was widely touted that the core audience would ignore the reviews, but the open of £649,000 may prove otherwise. It will surely come as a disappointment to Horne and Corden, though The Guardian speculates it could have been worse:
For comparison, Spaced double act Simon Pegg and Nick Frost opened Shaun of the Dead to £1.6m in 2004; Ant and Dec suffered a bumpy transition to the big screen with a £796,000 debut for their Alien Autopsy in 2006; and Peep Show’s Mitchell and Webb suffered a near wipeout in 2007 with Magicians’ first weekend of £366,000.”
Lesbian Vampire Killers is in theaters now.
SOURCE: The Guardian Film Blog; “UK box office: Paul Blart: Mall Cop takes no prisoners;” Gant, Charles; 24 March 2009