Weekend Box Office: Mission Successful with 'Act of Valor'

In the war at the box office this weekend, it's little surprise that a bunch of Navy SEALs stormed the theaters and took the top spot. "Act of Valor" earned $24.7 million in its opening weekend, an impressive number for a movie with no stars, only unknowns who are active-duty Navy SEALs. The true-to-life tactics pitch must have spoken to audiences, and the Super Bowl ad probably helped as well.

Unsurprisingly, "Act of Valor" did well in the South and in areas near military bases, and the audience for the film was about 70% male.

In second place was another of the four new openers: "Good Deeds," starring Tyler Perry. Perry's comedies tend to do tremendously well, but "Deeds" is more of an understated drama (and Perry is not dressed as an old lady). So, the movie earned a solid but middling $16 million, but also scored high with audiences and should have legs going forward.

Those two new openers were followed by three holdovers: in third place was "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island," with another $13.5 million in its third weekend to bring its cume up to $76.7 million; in fourth place was "Safe House," which earned another $11.4 million in its third weekend, putting it just south of $100 million total; and in fifth place was "The Vow," which pulled another $10 million after its Valentine's Day opener for a cume of $103 million.

That means that the other two new openers for the weekend didn't even make the top five. In fact, the Paul Rudd/Jennifer Aniston comedy "Wanderlust" and the Amanda Seyfried thriller "Gone" placed eighth and ninth and earned $6.6 million and $5 million respectively. That's two certified bombs in one weekend. Neither film was particularly well reviewed, but one would expect with the stars in each that they might have performed at least north of $10 million.

All in all, this weekend proved to be a pretty interesting survey in moviegoing demographics.

1. "Act of Valor" - $24.7 million
2. "Tyler Perry's Good Deeds" - $16 million
3. "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" - $13.5 million ($76.7M)
4. "Safe House" - $11.4 million ($98.1M)
5. "The Vow" - $10 million ($103M)