Weekend Box Office: 'Transcendence' Bombs, 'Heaven' Scores
by EG
It seems that Americans are more interested in what's going on in Heaven than they are in what happens when Johnny Depp gets sucked into a computer. Over the Easter weekend, Christian melodrama "Heaven Is for Real" easily outpaced Depp's "Transcendence" in the battle of new releases.
Depp's latest box-office bomb took in an estimated $11.5 million in its opening weekend, which is less than half the opening-weekend take of both his last two bombs, "The Lone Ranger" and "Dark Shadows." The extremely poor performance of the big-budget "Transcendence" seems to show that Depp's days as a dependable box-office draw may be over for good.
On the other hand, "Heaven is for Real" earned $28.5 million in the period between Wednesday and Sunday, making it the latest in a collection of religious-themed films—"Son of God," "God's Not Dead," and "Noah" have all hit theaters in recent weeks—that have been at least modest successes.
Even "Heaven," though, couldn't beat "Captain America" over the weekend. The superhero film took first place, just like it has over the previous two weekends, and holdover "Rio 2" took second place, just like it did last week. The other two new releases, "Bears" and "A Haunted House 2," failed to draw significant audiences and placed fourth and fifth.