The Five-Year Engagement Flops?!

Jason Segel, Emily Blunt rom-com fails to meet expectations with $11.2 million debut; Think Like a Man rules for second straight box-office weekend

By Joal Ryan Apr 29, 2012 5:10 PMTags
The Five-Year Engagement, EMILY BLUNT, JASON SEGELGlen Wilson/Universal Studios

On second thought, maybe it's a good thing The Avengers hasn't opened here yet.

If it had, a batch of new movies, including Jason Segel and Emily Blunt's The Five-Year Engagement, would've been buried worse than they were at the box office. 

The surprise romantic-comedy hit Think Like a Man was a surprise No. 1 for a second weekend.

The Five-Year Engagement, pegged by some to rule the rankings, managed only a fifth-place debut.

The Jason Stratham action movie Safe and the costume-drama thriller The Raven fared even worse.

The animated The Pirates! Band of Misfits bowed in second place, but really wasn't any bigger than those other films. For all its theaters, 3-D ticket prices and family-friendly selling points, it only grossed $11.4 million.  

With a $11.2 million start, The Five Year-Engagement failed to meet expectations, and was more Drillbit Taylor than Forgetting Sarah Marshall. All three comedies were produced by Judd Apatow; Five-Year Engagement and Sarah Marshall starred Segel.

If there's one box-office bright spot for Five-Year Engagement, it's this: The comedy probably will be saved from flop status by its non-pricey budget of only about $30 million.

Among the holdovers, Think Like a Man upped its overall domestic take to $60.9 million, while the six-week-old The Hunger Games continued to show staying power.

21 Jump Street dropped out of the Top 10 after a hit domestic run of $132 million.

American Reunion also fell from the standings. It was gassed after a three-week stay, and, worse, with only $53.6 million in the domestic bank to date, it'll become the first American Pie big-screen comedy to fail to top $100 million.

Titanic 3D neared the end of its run, having added another $52.9 million to the 2-D Titanic's soaring domestic total.

In limited release, the Jack Black black comedy Bernie was a big litle hit, averaging a whopping $30,109 at each of its three theaters.

Overall, ticket sales were down one-third from the same weekend last year, Exhibitor Relations reported.

Lucky for Hollywood, The Avengers is (finally) opening here next weekend. Already, the Marvel comics team-up adventure has pulled in more than $175 million overseas.

Here's the complete rundown of the weekend's top movies, per Friday-Sunday domestic estimates as reported by the studios and Exhibitor Relations:

  1. Think Like a Man, $18 million
  2. The Pirates! Band of Misfits, $11.4 million
  3. The Lucky One, $11.3 million
  4. The Hunger Games, $11.3 million
  5. The Five-Year Engagement, $11.2 million
  6. Safe, $7.7 million
  7. The Raven, $7.3 million
  8. Chimpanzee, $6.5 million
  9. The Three Stooges, $5.4 million
  10. The Cabin in the Woods, $4.5 million

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