Weekend Box Office: March 25-27

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  Diary of a Wimpy Kid:  Rodrick Rules - $24.4 million

2.  Sucker Punch - $19 million

3.  Limitless - $15.2 million

4.  The Lincoln Lawyer - $11 million

5.  Rango - $9.8 million

6.  Battle Los Angeles - $7.6 million

7.  Paul - $7.5 million

8.  Red Riding Hood - $4.3 million

9.  The Adjustment Bureau - $4.2 million

10.  Mars Needs Moms - $2.1 million

Damn, now that's embarassing.  The gun-toting girls of Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch turned out to be no match for a couple of geeky seventh-graders.  Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules easily took the box office this weekend, grossing an impressive $24.4 million.  The sequel, based on a popular children's book series, had a reported budget of about $18 million, so it's already made that money back, and with a golden "A-" from Cinemascore, it should continue to do for the next few weeks, especially since many schools are going into their spring break weeks.  We should also expect to see another Diary movie about this time next year. 

So what happened to Sucker Punch?  Well, the box office race looked like it would be close on Friday with Snyder's CG extravaganza running about even with Wimpy Kid, but then things went south on Saturday when attendence for Sucker Punch dropped an ugly 17%, and Wimpy Kid surged by 39%, thanks to its kid-matinee crowd.  This would be the worst opening weekend for any of Snyder's live-action films, and the big drop over the weekend doesn't bode well for business to pick up anytime soon.  Oh well.  At least he's got Superman to keep him busy for now.

It was a surprisingly good weekend for last week's big openers:  Limitless barely dropped 20% to earn another $15.2 million, and The Lincoln Lawyer had an even smaller drop and brought in $11 million.  Rango drops to 5th place, but became the first 2011 movie to cross the $100 million mark with $9.8 million this weekend.  Even Battle Los Angeles is hanging in there with another $7.6 million, although it's doubtful to reach $100 million at this point.

As far as the rest of the aliens at the box office, Paul dropped 43% to earn $7.5 million, bringing its total to an OK $24.6 million.  Having lost most of its IMAX locations to Sucker Punch this weekend, Mars Needs Moms limps its way out of the top ten with just $2.1 million.  After two weeks, it has yet to reach even $20 million at the box office.  Yikes.

Next weekend brings the Easter family comedy Hop, the evil-child horror film Insidious, and the sci-fi thriller Source Code.  Summer?  It's just around the corner.