Culture

...And Then There Was the 'Lone Survivor'

Welcome to the Box Office Report, where Mark Wahlberg will survive the apocalypse, probably. 

By Connor Simpson
This article is from the archive of our partner .

Welcome to the Box Office Report, where Mark Wahlberg will survive the apocalypse, probably.

1. Lone Survivor (Universal): $38.5 million in 2,875 theaters

The best takeaway from Lone Survivor's weekend domination is the redemption of Peter Berg and Taylor Kitsch, as Buzzfeed's Adam B. Vary points out here. The two shared one of 2012 biggest bombs, Battleship, and nearly tanked their promising feature film careers. Berg and Kitsch previously worked together on Friday Night Lights, the wonderful television show about a high school football team in the fictional Dillon, Texas, before moving to the big pictures. Coupled with a John Carter from Mars-level disaster, Kitsch's movie career was looking ill. The pair needed a successful weekend. With or without the assist from Mark Whalberg — a win is a win.

But besides all of that, Lone Survivor had the second best January opening of all time, after 2008's Cloverfield. Unsurprisingly, as The Hollywood Reporter explains, the film played best in flyover stats, like Texas, and suffered in places like, say, Canada. Lone Survivor is now the best post-9/11 war movie, passing last year's Zero Dark Thirty, which also debuted in January.

2. Frozen (Beuna Vista): $15 million in 3,239 theaters

As Jay-Z once rapped, what more can I say? Frozen turned in another solid weekend at the box office because it's apparently an indestructible movie. (The disney musical is now well over $300 million domestically.) But overall box office grosses are down this weekend compared to last year's numbers, which means everything else didn't pull enough weight except for, well, Lone Survivor. How poetic.

3. Wolf of Wall Street (Paramount): $9 million in 2,521 theaters

Imagine the soap required for mom's to properly wash out the Wolf's mouth after watching this f*ck-filled supercut of f*cks.

4. The Legend of Hercules (Lionsgate): $8.6 million in 2,104 theaters

Kellen Lutz looks and sounds like he came from a Hollywood hot dude generator.

5. American Hustle (Sony): $8.6 million in 2,629 theaters 

If anything from American Hustle survives, I hope it's Fat Christian Bale.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.