LOS ANGELES — The high school-set 21 Jump Street taught its competition a lesson at the box office last weekend, easily collecting the majority of ticket sales.
The film, starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as police officers who go back to high school on an undercover mission, reaped a healthy $36.3 million, according to an estimate by distributor Columbia Pictures.
21 Jump Street was the only new movie to hit theaters nationwide last weekend, though two other comedies debuted in about 60 of the country’s top markets. Casa de Mi Padre, a Spanishlanguage spaghetti-Western spoof featuring Will Ferrell, raked in a solid $2.3 million. Playing in 100 fewer theaters, Jeff, Who Lives at Home, starring Jason Segel as an idealistic thirtysomething living in his mother’s basement, grossed a so-so $855,709.
Co-financed by Columbia and MGM for about $42 million, 21 Jump Street has earned strong critical reviews and was well received upon its premiere at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, last week.
21 Jump Street appealed to both sexes in nearly equal measure and all ages went to see it as well: Half of the crowd was younger than 25 and half was older. However, it played far better with the younger audience, who assigned it an average grade of A, according to market research firm CinemaScore.
The film marked a return to comedy for Hill, who this year earned an Oscar nomination for his supporting role in the baseball drama Moneyball. It’s also the second boxoffice success of the year for Tatum, the heartthrob who propelled Columbia’s romantic tear-jerker The Vow to more than $100 million worth of ticket sales in February.
As for Ferrell, the actor developed Casa de Mi Padre through his Gary Sanchez Productions. In the low-budget flick financed by Nala Films for $6 million, the comedian plays a Mexican rancher’s son who becomes involved in a drug war. The film debuted in 382 locations last weekend, for a per-theater average of $5,988. As expected, the film appealed to Hispanic audiences, who made up 68 percent of the crowd over the weekend.
The movie is being released by Pantelion Films, Lionsgate’s venture with Mexican media company Televisa. Since its inception in 2010, Pantelion has struggled to find success at the box office. Casa de Mi Padre will almost definitely prove to be its biggest release. Next weekend, Casa will expand to roughly 400 theaters.
Jeff, Who Lives at Home, co-starring Ed Helms and Susan Sarandon, played in 254 cinemas last weekend and ended up with a per-theater total of $3,369. The low-budget movie was co-funded by Paramount’s specialty label Vantage and independent production-financing company Indian Paintbrush.
The film has the potential to become the biggest hit yet for filmmaking brother team Mark and Jay Duplass. After beginning their career with a series of mumblecore films — ultra-inexpensive, documentary-style movies centered on naturalistic dialogue — the brothers made their first studio project in 2010 with Fox Searchlight. That film, Cyrus, starring Hill and John C. Reilly, grossed only $7.5 million at the box office by the end of its run.
MovieStyle, Pages 36 on 03/23/2012