Summit Entertainment's Warm Bodies -- a new spin on the zombie genre -- topped the Super Bowl weekend box office with a solid $20 million debut, while Sylvestor Stallone's new action pic Bullet to the Head turned in a grim $4.5 million.
Billed as a paranormal romantic comedy, Warm Bodies stars Nicholas Hoult as a zombie who rescues a girl (Teresa Palmer) from imminent death at the hands of his fellow undead. An unlikely romance develops, setting off an unforeseen chain of events.
Jonathan Levine directed Warm Bodies, based on the popular young-adult book by Isaac Marion (Summit, of course, is the studio that adapted Stephenie Meyer's blockbuster YA Twilight series).
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Warm Bodies, receiving a B+ CinemaScore, hit its target demo -- younger females. Women and girls made up 60 percent of the audience, while 65 percent of those buying tickets were under the age of 25. The movie received a B+ CinemaScore.
Bullet to the Head skewed notably older, with 81 percent of the audience over the age of 25. The pic is certain to suffer on Sunday because of the Super Bowl, and is the third R-rated action movie in a row to suffer after The Last Stand and Parker.
Produced and financed by Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment and IM Global/Reliance, Bullet to the Head is based on the French graphic novel Du plomb dans la tete and stars Stallone as a hitman who teams up with a young Washington, D.C. detective (Sung Kang) to track down a team of ruthless criminals behind two murders that brought them together in the first place. Warner Bros. is releasing the movie domestically per its deal with Dark Castle.
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Soft in its limited debut was crime comedy Stand Up Guys, starring Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin. The movie, from Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions, grossed $1.5 million from 659 theaters for a location average of $2,276. In the film, Pacino's character is reunited with his old partner in crime after serving 28 years in prison, only to find that his partner has his own ax to grind.
Here are the full results for the weekend of Feb. 1-3 at the domestic box office:
Title, Weeks in release/theater count, studio, three-day weekend total, cume (*denotes Oscar best picture contender)
1. Warm Bodies, 1/3,009, Summit, $19 million
2. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, 2/3,375, Paramount/MGM, $9.2 million, $34.5 million
3. *Silver Linings Playbook, 12/2,809, The Weinstein Co., $8.1 million, $80.4 million
4. Mama, 3/2,781, Universal, $6.7 million, $58.3 million
5. *Zero Dark Thirty, 7/2,871, Sony/Annapurna, $5.3 million, $77.8 million
6. Bullet to the Head, 1/2,404, Warner Bros./Dark Castle, $4.5 million
7. Parker, 2/2,238, FilmDistrict, $3.2 million, $12.4 million
8. *Django Unchained, 6/1,777, The Weinstein Co., $3 million, $151 million
9. *Les Miserables, 6/1,848, Universal, $2.44 million, $141.5 million
10. *Lincoln, 12/1,765, Disney/DreamWorks, $2.41 million, $170.8 million
Twitter @PamelaDayM
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