Skip to footer

Johnny Depp's comedy 'Mortdecai' bombs at the box office

The caper movie opened with only $4.1 million this weekend, coming in at ninth place. 'American Sniper' again took the top spot at the box office with an additional $64.4 million while the thriller 'The Boy Next Door' came in at second with $15 million.

|
David Appleby/Lionsgate/AP
'Mortdecai' stars Johnny Depp (r.) and Gwyneth Paltrow (l.).
  • By Derrik J. Lang Associated Press

"American Sniper" hit the mark with moviegoers again.

The military drama starring Bradley Cooper as Navy SEAL marksman Chris Kyle topped the box office for a second weekend in a row with $64.4 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

"American Sniper" is up for six Academy Awards, including best picture and best actor for Cooper. The total haul for the Warner Bros. film now stands at $200.1 million. "American Sniper" also earned an additional $17.6 million in 16 international territories, including Australia, Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

"We've never quite seen anything like this at this time of year," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at box-office tracker Rentrak. "'American Sniper' is helping to propel the box office, which is already 9.3 percent ahead of the same time last year."

The film, directed by Clint Eastwood, already broke box-office records when it expanded to wide release last weekend, easily surpassing "Avatar" to become the biggest January opening for a movie and immediately becoming the top grosser among the best-picture Oscar nominees.

In a distant second place, the saucy Universal thriller "The Boy Next Door" featuring Jennifer Lopez as a teacher who engages in an affair with a younger man played by Ryan Guzman, debuted with $15 million.

The weekend's other major new releases weren't even in the neighborhood of "The Boy Next Door."

The animated fantasy "Strange Magic" from Luscasfilm and Disney flopped in seventh place with $5.5 million.

Lionsgate's Johnny Depp dud "Mortdecai" tanked in ninth place with $4.1 million. The eccentric heist comedy, which also stars Gwyneth Paltrow, marks another box-office bomb for Depp, following the leading man's disappointing "Transcendence," ''The Lone Ranger," ''Dark Shadows," and "The Rum Diary."

"I think he chooses projects that appeal to him," Dergarabedian said. "I've always appreciated Johnny Depp for marching to the beat of his own drum, but he still needs to get audiences in the door. Sometimes, if you go too far afield, that's reflected in the numbers."

Overseas, "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" dominated the international box office with $54.2 million. The final installment of the Middle-earth saga debuted in China with $49.5 million.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Johnny Depp's comedy 'Mortdecai' bombs at the box office
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2015/0126/Johnny-Depp-s-comedy-Mortdecai-bombs-at-the-box-office
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe