'Number Four' aims for first place at box office

LOS ANGELES: "I Am Number Four," a teen sci-fi adventure starring young English hunk-of-the-moment Alex Pettyfer, is likely to open in the No. 1 spot at the North American box office this Presidents Day holiday weekend.

Box-office observers say the film could do in the low-$20 million range for the four-day period.

Directed by D.J. Caruso, "Number Four" tells the story of an alien teenager hiding out on Earth from the ruthless species that killed his family. It marks the first DreamWorks title to be released by Disney's Touchstone Pictures under a distribution and marketing deal struck between the companies after DreamWorks' split with Paramount.

"Number Four" isn't the only new title poised to do well over the long holiday weekend, sparking hope in Hollywood that the downturn at the domestic box office will begin to reverse itself.

"Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son" also has good traction, especially among black audiences. The Fox threequel returns Martin Lawrence in the lead role while introducing a younger character played by Brandon T. Jackson.

The third new wide release is the Liam Neeson action-thriller "Unknown." The Warner Bros. release goes after older moviegoers and hopes to replicate the success of Neeson's 2009 surprise hit "Taken."

All three will have to compete with reigning champ "Just Go With It," a Sony romantic comedy starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. It had earned $41 million through Wednesday.

Disney's "Gnomeo & Juliet" also should have a good second weekend, particularly with Monday being a holiday in the United States. It had earned $30 million through Monday.

"Justin Bieber: Never Say Never" is expected to suffer a big drop in its second weekend, but no one is willing to bet against the teen icon entirely. Its total through Wednesday was $33.9 million. (Reuters)

'Black Swan' continues its twirl overseas

LOS ANGELES: Despite "Tangled's" continued lock on first place, "Black Swan" landed just a feather away from taking the top spot at foreign theaters over the weekend, missing No. 1 by a mere $131,664.

An obvious "Oscar Bump" is strongly in play as international audiences in 29 territories boosted the mainstream art house wonder over the $150 million mark in global revenue with $16.7 million in weekend receipts.

Third place got an unexpected visitor as the Franco-Belgian comedy "Nothing to Declare" in just four territories earned an impressive $13.95 million and is approaching $50 million worldwide. For a film that most people stateside have never heard of, that's not a bad haul.

In six more territories than last week another Oscar darling, "The King's Speech," held steady in fourth place with $13.2 million and a global cumulative that is just a shilling shy of $200 million. And other Oscar contenders continued to make their mark in the Top 20, with "True Grit" in ninth place and "The Fighter" in 19th place, having just crossed the $100 million mark in global dollars.

Here are the top 20 movies at international theaters last weekend, followed by international gross for the weekend (excluding North America), number of theater locations, number of territories, worldwide gross to date (including North America), and number of weeks in release as compiled Wednesday by global media measurement company Rentrak Corp. and provided by Hollywood.com:

"Tangled," $16,871,286, 4,400 locations, 44 territories, $490,473,734, 12 weeks.

2. "Black Swan," $16,739,622, 3,484 locations, 29 territories, $155,421,621, 11 weeks.

3. "Nothing to Declare," $13,956,964, 1,129 locations, four territories, $46,882,950, three weeks.

4. "The King's Speech," $13,211,028, 3,893 locations, 26 territories, $199,976,798, 12 weeks.

5. "Sanctum," $11,958,392, 3,856 locations, 13 territories, $45,453,535, two weeks.

6. "The Green Hornet," $10,787,977, 7,822 locations, 59 territories, $200,046,313, five weeks.

7. "Yogi Bear," $9,278,119, 4,246 locations, 31 territories, $155,338,796, nine weeks.

8. "Kokowääh," $8,524,143, 876 locations, three territories, $21,659,756, two weeks.

9. "True Grit," $8,469,692, 3,385 locations, 16 territories, $177,921,814, eight weeks.

10. "Gulliver's Travels," $7,644,591, 1,992 locations, 36 territories, $183,300,808, eight weeks.

11. "Tron Legacy," $6,289,869, 2,075 locations, 26 territories, $356,084,840, nine weeks.

12. "No Strings Attached," $5,525,670, 3,098 locations, 17 territories, $71,811,219, four weeks.

13. "Gnomeo and Juliet," $5,348,317, 3,633 locations, seven territories, $34,476,335, one week.

14. "Just Go With It," $5,229,806, 4,463 locations, 13 territories, $44,182,893, one week.

15. "Hereafter," $4,487,711, 1,500 locations, 27 territories, $88,829,879, six weeks.

16. "The Tourist," $4,234,232, 2,601 locations, 50 territories, $230,777,671, 10 weeks.

17. "Femmine Contro Maschi," $3,362,288, locations NA, one territory, $10,450,509, two weeks.

18. "Detective K: Secret of a Peddler's Inn," $3,354,139, locations NA, one territory, $24,321,180, three weeks.

19. "The Fighter," $3,321,450, 1,942 locations, 19 territories, $102,820,739, 10 weeks.

20. "Gantz," $3,092,464, locations NA, one territory, $25,870,868, three weeks. (AP)

'The Roommate' slips into box office top spot

LOS ANGELES: The low-budget and widely panned horror flick "The Roommate" opened at the top of the North American box office during a sluggish weekend, industry estimates showed Sunday.

The psychological thriller starring Leighton Meester as a deranged college freshman obsessed with her roommate Minka Kelly grossed $15.6 million in its three days, despite receiving poor reviews.

Survey aggregator Rotten Tomatoes said only nine percent of critics gave the film a thumbs-up.

Box office earnings were dented this weekend by the hugely popular Super Bowl American football championship game, due to take place later Sunday.

"Sanctum," which also got trashed by critics -- came in a distant second. The 3-D underwater cave adventure produced by James Cameron of "Avatar" fame secured $9.2 million in ticket receipts.

Dropping into third was "No Strings Attached," a romantic romp starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher. The Ivan Reitman film about casual sex between friends took in $8.4 million.

British historical drama "The King's Speech" jumped up one notch to fourth after drawing 12 nominations from the Oscars race. It has earned $84.1 million so far in 11 weeks of showing.

Action movie "The Green Hornet" got fifth with $6.1 million, pulling ahead of Anthony Hopkins exorcism thriller "The Rite." The horror inspired by 1970s classic "The Exorcist" captured $5.6 million.

Dropping to seventh with $5.4 million was "The Mechanic," while the Western "True Grit" came in eighth with $4.8 million.

Oscar-winning brothers Joel and Ethan Coen's remake features Jeff Bridges in the John Wayne role as a drunken, hard-nosed US marshal. The film has earned $155 million in seven weeks.

Vince Vaughn's relationship comedy "The Dilemma," in its fourth week in theaters, slipped from seventh to ninth with $3.4 million.

Rounding out the top 10 was "Black Swan," a gritty ballet-themed thriller starring Natalie Portman which earned $3.4 million, for a 10-week total of $95.9 million.

The film was nominated for five Oscars, including best picture and best performance by an actress for Portman.

China sets $1.5 bln box office record in 2010

BEIJING: China's film industry had a record year in 2010, grossing 10.17 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) at the box office, but domestic movies struggled against Hollywood blockbusters, according to state media.

National box office takings rose 63.9 percent on-year as more Chinese than ever went to the movies, Tong Gang, director of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television's State Film Bureau told the China Daily on Saturday.

"Ten billion yuan is just something to feel good about, but not to show off about," Tong was quoted as saying.

"So far, it has not been possible to compete with such films as 'Avatar' and 'Inception'. Far too few domestic films are well received by the public," he added.

Combined, Hollywood's sci-fi fantasy "Avatar" and thriller "Inception" represented about a fifth of China's total box office takings while the highest-grossing domestic film, disaster epic "Aftershock", earned only 673 million yuan.

"China still lacks good films," Tong said.

Beijing officials are increasingly stressing that China needs to expand its cultural industries, which account for less than two percent of the country's gross domestic product.

China made 526 feature films in 2010 -- up 15 percent from 2009 -- making it the third-largest film producer after Bollywood and Hollywood, the China Daily said.

But critics, including "Aftershock" director Feng Xiaogang, one of the country’s most successful commercial directors, say censors at the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television often block the kind of originality needed to make great films.

"This is not an era that can produce masters," Feng told Sina.com in an interview last year.

China currently limits the number of foreign films screened in cinemas to 20 a year but in March it is due to address the World Trade Organization's call for it to open up its film market.

Tong declined to comment on what impact that ruling could have on the domestic film industry, the report said.

Actors who rocked the Box office

The usual frontrunners like Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan and even megastar Amitabh Bachchan failed to charm audiences with their big budget outings this year except for Salman Khan and Ajay Devgn who were followed by underdogs and first-timers.

Here's a list of the top actors on the basis of their box office performances:

- Salman Khan: Nobody beats this "Bigg Boss" when it comes to pleasing audiences with his authenticity and irrevocable charm. Living up to his "Wanted" legacy, 'Robinhood Pandey' stood tall as the invincible king of Bollywood this year with his mofussil mazaa providing contemporary vintage corrupt cop saga "Dabangg" that flushed the debacle of his first release of the year "Veer" to obscurity.

- Ajay Devgn: Comedy, politics, action - you name it, he's done it. Proving his mettle with the maximum releases for an actor this year in "Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge?" "Raajneeti", "Golmaal 3", "Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai" and the forgetful "Aakrosh", the National Award winner emerged as the most versatile and dependable actor. To top it all, he is set to close the year with the live-action animation "Toonpur Ka Superhero".

- Omkar Das Manikpuri: No six packs, no film connections and no fanfare, but still this 39-year-old native from Bhilai managed to make his place in a billion hearts with his vulnerable, suicidal and tattered appearance as soon as his modest debut "Peepli Live" hit the screens. The result - you had the common man and now he's got a name, Natha.

- Raghubir Yadav - "Massey Sahib" returned and how! The award-winning seasoned actor might be an irregular with his attendance on the big screen, but when it came to playing Budhia, Natha's elder brother in "Peepli Live", this Mungerilal just struck the right note.

- Shah Rukh Khan: Businessman, actor - actor, businessman. The Badshah of Bollywood, a name often synonymous with larger-than-life cinema on the big screen, found it difficult to maintain his crown this year despite pulling off the role of an autistic youth in "My Name Is Khan" with aplomb. Still wondering why he's on the list? Because he's Khan...Shah Rukh Khan!

- Ali Zafar: While illegal Bollywood discs run on the neighbouring nation's home theatres with panache, the Hindi film industry got an original import in Zafar from Pakistan to produce a sleeper hit "Tere Bin Laden". As for the singer-actor's performance, he definitely left the fairer sex wanting for more.

- Ranbir Kapoor: Nobody believed that this Kapoor family scion will portray the nuances of a conniving and scheming politician with such perfection in "Raajneeti". But this chocolate boy turned into desi Michael Corleone and surprised everyone with his immaculate performance in the political thriller that hit bull's eye at the box office. His antics as lover boy in "Anjaana Anjaani", however, couldn't live up to the wickedness of the character he portrayed.

- Ranvir Singh: Again no pomp and show and no filmy father but this lad from Mumbai managed to do just the appropriate justice to his role as a Delhi munda in Yash Raj Films' hit "Band Baaja Baaraat". With a dream debut and a petite co-star in Anushka Sharma, he was praised for carrying both the film and the actress on his shoulders.

- Rishi Kapoor: Now this is what you call a comeback. Not that Rishi Kapoor has not been active on the celluloid but he certainly has not been doing lead roles. "Do Dooni Char" just brought back the plump kid from "Mera Naam Joker", in his twilight days now, to the big screen in an ovation worthy slice of cinema.

- Ronit Roy: More than 15 years after he made his big screen debut before making a phenomenal breakthrough on the small screen, this actor just proved he has it in him to shake and not stir the audiences with his captive and powerful performance. If there are any adjectives to go by, truly the underdog.