There are some splashy new movies out in theaters this weekend, and yet neither of them are looking capable of tackling the monster hits from last weekend. Early box office numbers from Friday indicate that The Vow and Safe House are looking strong enough to top the box office this weekend, leaving no room for releases like Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance or This Means War to make it to the top. That said, Spirit of Vengeance is at least going pretty well for itself, making $7 million on Friday, which put it in second place for Friday just behind The Vow, which made $7.4 million. This Means War fared much worse as a new release, making just $5.6 million, well under Safe House's $6.5 million.
To see how strong the holdovers are, just look at what happened on Valentine's Day, when The Vow brought in a record-breaking $11.6 million from date night couples, while This Means War, opening in sneak peeks, got $1.6 million. According to the numbers at Variety, while Ghost Rider may be running ahead of the similarly male-centric Safe House right now, superhero movies like that one tend to be frontloaded, so it will probably drop down as the weekend goes on to land in the mid-$20 million range. By comparison, the first Ghost Rider movie opened to $45 million, leaving this highly touted sequel with less than half.
Though none of these releases are all that good, with the top four films all boasting rotten critical scores, it's encouraging to see so many people going to the movies, especially on a critical holiday weekend like this one. Are you one of those moviegoers, and if so, are you liking what you're seeing? Let us know in the comments below.
