Into You wins weekend box office

VARIETY BOX-OFFICE REPORT: Romantic comedy finds love with the ladies

By Dade Hayes of Variety -- Video Business, 2/9/2009

FEB. 9 | VARIETY BOX-OFFICE REPORT: Hollywood’s box office stimulus package -- a cluster of precision-targeted pics -- won landslide approval as Warner Bros. release of New Line’s star-laden romantic comedy He’s Just Not That Into You topped the weekend with $27.5 million.

Focus Features’ 3D title Coraline and Summit’s poorly reviewed frosh actioner Push both outperformed expectations, adding to the weekend’s overall strong performance by rookies and holdovers and extending the box office’s amazing hot streak in 2009.

The torrent of highly commercial new releases dinged the Oscar-nominated pics, which -- outside of Slumdog Millionaire, The Wrestler and The Reader -- saw virtually no bump. That’s rare for kudos contenders in February.

The weekend improved on last year’s comparable frame by more than 50%. No single title dropped by more than 38%, and the miniscule drops seen by Taken (18%) and Paul Blart: Mall Cop (21%) attest to strong demand by economy-shaken auds for a well-priced good time.

Only the lower-than-forecast bow of The Pink Panther 2 dimmed the weekend picture. The Sony-MGM co-venture opened to $12 million, well below the bow of the franchise’s 2006 reboot, which opened to $20.2 million and finished with $82.2 million.

Read the full story on Variety.com.

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