The king of the Hollywood movie mountain was Taken 2 this weekend. The action sequel that stars Liam Neeson and unlikely action movie star in his 50’s doubled the box office take from it predecessor with a strong 50 million dollar opening.
Despite critics opinions about the film “Taken 2” managed to pull in 50 million at the box office this weekend according to studio estimates. It doubled 2009’s “Taken” which brought in 24.7 million.
In “Taken 2,” Liam Neeson returns as a retired CIA agent using his expert espionage and killing skills to take on a gang of thugs out for revenge against him and his family because of the events that took place in the first film.
The movie began rolling out overseas a weekend earlier, added $55 million more in about 50 international markets to raise its worldwide total to $117 million. Not bad at all.
The other films rounding out the Top 5 are last weekend’s #1 the Adam Sandler animated hit comedy “Hotel Transylvania” which took in a good 26.2 million. The Sony distributed movie raised its domestic numbers to 76 million, and 29.3 million overseas for a worldwide total of 105.3 million.
In 3rd place after a limited release which as now become nationwide is Universal’s music movie “Pitch Perfect” which took in receipts totaling 14.7 million. Anna Kendrick stars as a college freshman who sings a cappella to invigorate her singing class.
Sony’s sci-fi thriller “Looper,” starring Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, fell from second-place to fourth with $12.2 million, lifting its domestic haul to $40.3 million. That’s not a good sign at all in the movie world as this movie did receive a strong marketing budget and stars to A-List actors.
Tim Burton’s animated monster tale “Frankenweenie” had a slow start, taking in $11.5 million to round out the top-five. The Disney released film is an update of Burton’s 1984 live-action short film -about a boy who brings his dead dog back to life. This movie has some potential but in my opinion the trailer and advertising for it struggles to identify who exactly the target audience really is. On the surface you would say it is for kids but then when you see how creepy some of the images are– I couldn’t image any young children who would want to see it.
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