When I was out in LA for Oscar week, I saw A TON of billboards for “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone”. Apparently, they didn’t help as the magician-themed comedy only made $10.3 million at the Weekend Box Office. It still shocks me that a very funny film with such a star-studded, likeable cast (Steve Carell, Jim Carrey, Alan Arkin, etc.) would bomb.
“Burt” was in over 3,000 theaters, and all the stars made MANY talk-show appearances over the past several weeks. If you watched Carell’s interview on “The Tonight Show”, you could tell that Jay couldn’t stop laughing when discussing the plot of the film – he thought it was THAT funny. And I agree with him.
Carrey hadn’t been in a film since “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” (which I actually liked). Many (including film critic Richard Roeper) thought this was Carrey’s comeback film. Unfortunately, most of the reviews for “Wonderstone” were very harsh; currently it has a 38% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
This weekend last year, “21 Jump Street” took down “The Lorax” after two weeks with an impressive $36 million open. “Burt” was likely going after the same audience or even younger since it’s PG-13 compared to “Jump Street”‘s R-rating.
“Burt”‘s weak open is probably the biggest stunner at the box office so far this year.