Depending on who you ask, Disney's John Carter may have managed to beat its rival The Lorax at the box office on Friday. Both films were neck and neck with around $9.8 million grossed, but according to THR John Carter managed to edge out the animated holdover, probably boosted by a B+ CinemaScore rating though. It won't matter, though-- The Lorax has the power of families and their matinee tickets on its side, and it will easily overtake the new sci-fi film to win the weekend. The Lorax is now projected to make $40 million this weekend, with John Carter coming in well behind with $27 million.
THR points out that the audience for John Carter is skewing a good bit older, with nearly 70% of the audience over the age of 25-- the reverse of what usually happens when you've got a big tentpole 3D film that crams in the teenage male audiences. We're still trying to sort out exactly what happened with John Carter to make audiences so uninterested-- you can join the conversation about that there if you like-- but it's now clear that the widespread predictions that the film would falter this weekend have come true. The movie might be able to edge closer to the $30 million that the studio was hoping for, but it's far from what you want when you produce an expensive, really big new movie-- and even with the film seeming to perform pretty well in foreign markets, it won't be nearly enough to make a profit.
Let us know in the comments what you're seeing this weekend, and especially help explain the massive success of The Lorax despite a bunch of terrible reviews. We'll have a full box office report for you on Sunday.
