“Semi-Pro” won the weekend box office race, but the total of only $15.3 million is a huge disappointment, especially when you compare that total to Will Farrell’s other recent sports comedies.
Last year’s “Blade of Glory” made $33.0 million it’s first weekend. “Talledega Nights” (2006) opened with $47.0 million. Heck, the animated “Curious George”, in which Farrell did the voice of the Man in the Yellow Hat, made as much as “Semi-Pro” ($15.3) back in 2006.
Why was Semi-Pro such as bust? One letter: “R”. The “R” rating for the movie prevented hundreds of thousands of Farrell fans from going, including me. My father and I had been planning for months to see “Semi-Pro”, but when the “R” rating was announced, we had to take it off our list. If it was “PG-13” (like “Talledega” and “Blades”) we certainly would have gone. If a million other dads and kids also skipped the moviefor the same reason that cost the studio another $20-million dollars!
Terrible decision by New Line Cinema and Time Warner. The studios should know that kids are the ones who decide if a movie is going to be a box office hit or not.