Weekend Box Office Report

In the battle of the tween movie stars, Zac Efron unseats Miley Cyrus from the top of the box office charts.

Teenage moviegoers are a fickle bunch.  Just last week they were all about Miley Cyrus and her blonde-haired alter ego Hannah Montana.  But Billy Ray’s daughter became yesterday’s news this weekend as High School Musical heartthrob Zac Efron rolled onto the scene in a star vehicle called 17 Again and parked in the #1 spot previously occupied by Hannah Montana: The Movie.  Expect to see a lot more of Efron now that he’s proven he’s a box office draw outside of the HSM franchise.  While the kids were watching Zac do his thing, their parents apparently ducked into the theater next door to watch Russell Crowe investigate government corruption in Sate of Play, which opened in second place with a decent $14 million.  The end of the Hannah Montana craze meant that DreamWorks’ sci-fi cartoon Monsters vs. Aliens was able to hold onto the bronze medal while HM:TM came in fourth, just ahead of Fast & Furious, which is $10 million away from becoming the highest-grossing film in the franchise.  C’mon Vin–don’t stall out now!

Jason Statham’s Crank is one of those movies that underpreformed in theaters but became a huge hit on DVD.  So it made sense to finance a sequel hoping that fans of the first movie wouldn’t wait around for the second installment to show up at Blockbuster.  Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go down that way, as Crank: High Voltage finished in sixth place with $6.5 million, $4 million behind the original’s opening weekend gross.  DVD will undoubtedly help the movie turn a profit but chances of a Crank 3 seem slim–although I never thought they’d make a Transporter 3 either, so who knows?  Another movie awaiting re-discovery on disc is the Jody Hill comedy Observe and Report, which fell to seventh place and looks set to finish its run with about $25 million.  That’s far more than Hill’s debut feature, The Foot Fist Way, earned, but well below what the studio must have been hoping to earn off a comedy with Seth Rogen in the lead.  The final three spots were claimed by a trio of March releases as they slip off the chart to make room for new product, Knowing, I Love You, Man and The Haunting in Connecticut.

The full Top Ten is below courtesy of the-numbers.com.  Next week, Beyonce and Ali Larter catfight over Idris Elba in Obsessed, Jamie Foxx teaches Robert Downey Jr. how to be a better human being in The Soloist and Disneynature introduces audiences to the planet Earth in Earth.

The Top Ten: April 17-19, 2009
1. 17 Again: $24
2. State of Play: $14.1
3. Monsters vs. Aliens: $12.9/$162.7
4. Hannah Montana: The Movie: $12.6/$56.1
5. Fast & Furious: $12.2/$136.7
6. Crank: High Voltage: $6.5
7. Observe and Report: $4/$18.6
8. Knowing: $3.4/$73.6
9. I Love You, Man: $3.3/$64.6
10. The Haunting in Connecticut: $3.1/$51.9