The monstrous bulk of Peter Berg’s “Battleship” failed to dethrone “The Avengers” at the box-office this weekend, pulling in just $25.4 million to the mighty Marvel monolith’s $55.1 million.
Some are already trying to pin the blame on Taylor Kitsch, but I don’t think that’s fair — the “Battleship” marketing campaign was so incoherent that I can’t imagine that many people even knew he was in it.
No, I don’t think people thought much about seeing “Battleship” at all. (Or “The Dictator”, for that matter, which would explain its $17.4 million third-place opening.) “The Avengers” is still dominating the conversation. Like Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy or “Forrest Gump” or “Titanic” or “Avatar”, it’s crossed the threshold from blockbuster to genuine phenomenon — it’s the movie of the moment, the one everyone has to see just to feel plugged into the conversation. And I’m not sure why we’re all surprised by that; the marketing campaign has been four years in the making.
I doubt that Peter Berg is crying into his Corn Flakes this morning. Battleship opened overseas a month ago and has been a solid hit, already grossing over $200 million. A movie like this no longer needs the American market to be profitable.
“John Carter” did about as well overseas, but it’s still considered a bomb on this side of the world …
Haven’t seen it but I’ll only be comfortable with this movie if it was better and more profitable than the Chris Brown movie.