The Grosses: ‘Immortals’ Pleases the Gods

Will Leitch
·Editor

Top Five (Full list)
1. "Immortals" $32,000,000 ($32,000,000)
2. "Jack and Jill" $26,000,000 ($26,000,000)
3. "Puss In Boots" $25,500,000 ($108,809,000)
4. "Tower Heist" $13,200,000 ($43,900,000)
5. "J. Edgar" $11,470,000 ($11,569,000)

First Place. Never underestimate audiences' desire to see Stephen Dorff. In a considerable surprise, "Immortals' outlasted both "Jack and Jill" and "Puss In Boots" to earn $32 million despite some murky 3D and no huge names. (For now. Other than Dorff.) This bodes well for Tarsem's upcoming "Mirror Mirror," the other, nice Snow White adaptation. And it also means we're gonna be watching "Clash of the Titans" until the end of days.

YOU FLOPPED. With all the negative Brett Ratner-Eddie Murphy business of the last week -- and this week's gonna be calmer, right? -- it's probably not a surprise that "Tower Heist" fell dramatically, down to $13.2 million for fourth place. The film has now made only $43.9 million and looks highly unlikely to make back its $75 million budget domestically. As we said last week: If Ratner, who is crass, obnoxious and a borderline-incompetent director, isn't directing movies that make a ton of money, then why is he still around, exactly?

Impressive Bridesmaid. "Jack and Jill" put up the smallest Adam Sandler-Happy Madison opening weekend since "Little Nicky," probably because the trailers made everyone say, "Good Lord, what is that thing?" But it still did well: $26 million in its first weekend, still better than, say, "Funny People." Maybe Sandler will take a hint from the slight downtick and try slightly harder next time? Yeah, who are we kidding? "J. Edgar" fell somewhere in between "Bridesmaids" and "Flopped," by the way, so we'll just say it made $11.47 million on nearly 2,000 screens and let you take it from there.

Tiny Dancer. Maybe Video On Demand doesn't gut a movie's box office chances after all? Like "Margin Call," "Melancholia" did just fine in limited release, earning $270,000 on 19 screenings despite having been available through your cable box for a month now. Good sign! Sadly, Werner Herzog's outstanding "Into the Abyss" didn't even do as well as his "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" last year.

Next Week's Contestants. Dancing penguins in "Happy Feet 2," and that's it? Wait, what's that you say? Eh? Oh, yes: "Breaking Dawn, Part One." That happens this week too. You now feel old, no matter what your age is.