NEW YORK — Tom Hanks. Tom Cruise. Ben Affleck. None of them has been a match for Tyler Perry’s Madea.
In a surprise victory at the weekend box office, Perry’s “Boo! A Madea Halloween” toppled another A-lister as Hanks’ and Ron Howard’s new Dan Brown adaption, “Inferno,” went up in flames. Perry’s latest movie about his tough-talking grandmother remained No. 1 for the second straight week with an estimated $16.7 million.
That was enough to scare away the third installment of the “Da Vinci Code” franchise. According to studio estimates Sunday, “Inferno” bombed with $15 million, about half of what more bullish predictions anticipated.
Sony Pictures and “Inferno” could take solace in stronger overseas business. In three weeks of international release, the Italy-set film has earned nearly $150 million. The studio also stressed that the $75 million budget for “Inferno” was half that of 2006’s “The Da Vinci Code” or 2009’s “Angels & Demons.”
“Certainly we thought of the film as for the international market. We knew that’s where the sweet spot was going to be,” said Rory Bruer, domestic distribution chief for Sony. “We got a few bad breaks, the biggest being this historical World Series.”
But the unexpectedly poor performance of “Inferno” was yet another example of an anxious trend in the movie business: More of the same isn’t working.
Poorly reviewed and coming seven years after the last Robert Langdon thriller, “Inferno” arrived long after the Dan Brown craze.
– Associated Press
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