Hot Tub Time Machine is at least as funny as The Hangover if not funnier, and it’s certainly much wilder, and it grossed a lousy $4.5 million yesterday? Which is only $900,000 more than the $4 million earned by the second-stanza Bounty Hunter, which people with taste and brains are said to despise? What happened?
Standoffish women is what happened. Plus the fact that HTTM only opened in 2700-plus situations compared to 4,055 screens for How To Train Your Dragon, the weekend’s top-grossing film, and 3384 runs for Tim Burton‘s second-place Alice in Wonderland.
Definite interest among under-25 males for HTTM was a relatively okay 46, but a not-so-hot 30 among over-25 males (i.e., guys who were young in the ’80s). Clash of the Titans (4.2) has a definite interest factor of 59 among under-25 males by comparison, and Kick Ass (which doesn’t open until 4.16) has an under-25 definite interest at 67. Hot Tub managed to wrangle a mere definite interest 31 from under-25 females, and over-25 females only gave it a 26.
I know what this film is, I know how well it played with the crowd I saw it with, and a $13 or $14 million weekend gross just doesn’t seem to add up. It’s not a disaster — it’ll end up with $45 or $50 million domestic — but it doesn’t seem proportionate to what HTTM actually is.
How To Train Your Dragon took in $12.2 million yesterday and Alice pulled down $4.7 million.