Weekend Box Office Report: 3/31/2013: G.I. Saves The World

GI Joe: Retaliation cleans up globally.  I haven’t seen it and I’m not sure I want to.  I did attempt to watch G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra once, but turned it off after about a half hour.  I couldn’t take it any more.  I may get back to it one of these days but don’t hold your breath.  Maybe the reason I couldn’t get into it was because my testosterone levels were low that day.

Retaliation was supposed to open last summer, but Paramount pulled it back to do a 3D conversion, and to stir in a few more scenes of Channing Tatum.  

Frankly, I’m not getting the whole Channing Tatum thing.  What am I missing?  I saw 21 Jump Street and I wasn’t impressed.  I watched The Vow with my girlfriend, and it was a painful experience.  I hate to say things like “it’s a woman’s thing” because it sounds so damn sexist, but I can’t offer up any other explanation.  Except that a big fat 68 per cent of the audience was made up of hyper testosteroned males.  Thank you, but I’ll wait for the DVD and that’s probably when I’ll get back to the first one.  Not before.

From Hollywood Reporter:

G.I. Joe took in $80.3 million overseas and $51.7 million domestically, including $41.2 million for the weekend proper, the second-best domestic Easter gross behind the 2010 Clash of the Titans ($61.2 million). Internationally, G.I. Joe opened 10 percent ahead of Oz the Great and Powerful, which debuted earlier this month to $69.9 million.

Overseas, the sequel is doing double the business that Cobra did (that film opened to $92 million globally). It's doing especially well in Russia ($11 million), Latin America and Asia, where 3D remains a popular format. IMAX theaters generated $7 million of the total global gross.

The successful opening of G.I. Joe vindicates Paramount for deciding to push back the film's release from summer 2012 in order to convert it to 3D and refashion Channing Tatum's role so that the actor has more scenes.

"Clearly this was a movie that felt like it should be in 3D, so Jon Chu went back and did an excellent job in making that happen," said Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore. "Certain parts of the story also needed to be massaged, and Adam Goodman and his team worked with Jon to get it to a great place. 

Here’s how they stack up for the Cesar Chavez Holiday Weekend.  Oh yea, and that Bunny thing too.