Robinson biopic a home run at N. America theaters
Jackie Robinson biopic "42" hit a home run at the North American box office in its debut weekend, easily besting its rivals, industry figures showed Monday. The film, starring Chadwick Boseman as the ground-breaking African American baseball star and Harrison Ford as the Brooklyn Dodgers exec who signed him, raked in $27.5 million in ticket sales. "Scary Movie 5," the latest installment in the horror comedy franchise, opened far behind in second place at $14.2 million, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations. Stone-age cartoon "The Croods," DreamWorks Animation's latest family crowd pleaser, held on to third spot with $13.1 million, followed by action sequel "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," with $10.9 million. "Evil Dead," a reinvention of Sam Raimi's cult 1981 film about a group of friends hunted by demons in the woods, dropped from first to fifth place in its second weekend with $9.5 million. In sixth place was the 3D re-release of Steven Spielberg's 1993 dinosaur classic "Jurassic Park," which took in $8.9 million. Action thriller "Olympus Has Fallen," a tale of terrorism and a kidnapped president in the US capital starring Gerard Butler and Morgan Freeman, slipped two places to seventh with $7.3 million in box office receipts. In eighth, Walt Disney's 3D fantasy adventure flick "Oz the Great and Powerful" earned $4.9 million. This was the blockbuster's sixth week in theaters, for a grand total topping $219 million so far. "Tyler Perry's Temptation," a sultry thriller starring Vanessa Williams and Kim Kardashian, dropped from sixth to ninth place, with $4.5 million in ticket sales. And rounding out the top 10, from 15th place a week ago, was "The Place Beyond the Pines," starring Oscar nominees Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper as a motorcycle stunt-rider turned bank-robber and an ambitious rookie cop. The film earned $3.9 million in ticket sales.
