Heartthrob Zac tops box office

LOS ANGELES – ‘High School Musical’ heartthrob Zac Efron graduated to the big leagues at the North American box office on Sunday as his new comedy crushed a weighty thriller starring Russell Crowe.

’17 Again’, in which Efron plays a dispirited 37-year-old family man who gets to relive his glory days at high school, earned a better-than-expected US$24,1 million, distributor Warner Bros said.
Crowe’s ‘State of Play’ opened at No 2 with US$14,1 million, but managed to exceed the modest expectations of its distributor, Universal Pictures.
Last weekend’s champion, ‘Hannah Montana: The Movie’, moved to No 4 with US$12,7 million, taking the 10-day haul for Walt Disney Co’s Miley Cyrus vehicle to US$56,1 million.
Just ahead of it, the family cartoon ‘Monsters vs Aliens’ held steady at No 3 with US$12,9 million. After four weekends, the DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc production has earned US$162,7 million, making it the biggest movie of the year so far.
Also new was ‘Crank: High Voltage’, a sequel starring British actor Jason Statham. It opened at No 6 with US$6,5 million. Pundits had expected the thriller to do better than ‘State of Play’.
While ’17 Again’ is the latest in a long line of body-switch comedies including such hits as ‘Big’ and ‘Freaky Friday’, its producers had their cake and ate it too by poking fun at the genre.
‘I don’t think we tried to play the earnest version,’ said producer Jennifer Gibgot, who originated the project after working with Efron in ‘Hairspray’.
LEADING MAN
Critics were generally kind to the picture, which also stars ‘Friends’ veteran Matthew Perry as the adult version of Efron, and Leslie Mann as his wife.
Gibgot said her goal was to show that Efron (21) could be a leading man. She envisaged future roles for him in smart thrillers or the sort of movies that made Michael J Fox a star, like the ‘Back to the Future’ series.
‘State of Play’, on the other hand, was dogged by the same challenges that have befallen other adult-oriented thrillers, such as ‘Michael Clayton’ and ‘Duplicity’. Older audiences generally don’t flock to the cinemas on opening weekends, and may wait for the DVD.
‘Adult films don’t rock the box office,’ said Nikki Rocco, president of domestic distribution at Universal, a unit of General Electric Co’s NBC Universal.
But she said ‘State of Play’ was off to a solid start, and she hoped it would hold up well over the next few weekends.
The US$60 million movie, based on a BBC miniseries, stars Crowe as a grizzled reporter who investigates a political conspiracy.
The cast is rounded out by fellow Oscar-winner Helen Mirren as his editor and Ben Affleck as a politician. Critics were effusive in their praise.
‘Crank: High Voltage’, which did not screen in advance for critics, was released by Lionsgate, a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. A spokesman was not immediately available for comment. The first film, ‘Crank’, opened to US$10,5 million in 2006 and ended up with US$28 million.
– Nampa-Reuters