It was a lame weekend for audiences as Hollywood unloaded three major stinkers into theaters. All three newcomers bombed with critics and they could barely score a positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes if you added all three of their percentages together. All three movies dodged critics by not holding review screenings, a bad start for a less than promising weekend.
If there was ever a time for we could use a money-back guarantee promise on movies, it would have been this weekend. But the movies still drew enough audience attention for one of them to make the top box office spot.
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters took number one with $19 million. The movie's bizarre premise and lame marketing, including a lack of previews for critics which might have allowed for some buzz to generate, resulted in little audience interest despite the presence of newly minted action star Jeremy Renner.
Parker. a quirky and violent crime flick limped in at fifth place with just $7 million. The movie's bizarre premise and lame marketing, including a lack of... yeah, you get the picture. The third newcomer, Movie 43 was such a waste of time that it barely scraped together $5 million to land in seventh place. The movie's bizarre premise and... OK, this was not Hollywood's brightest weekend. Let's hope it's not something studios plan to repeat throughout 2013.
For the full, albeit depressing, weekend top ten, check out the chart below:
