You’d think it would be easy for Zoë Saldaña by now. After all, she was in two of the 21st century’s most successful films. She was CGI’d to death (literally) in Avatar, shot into interstellar space in the Star Trek reboot, and attacked at by ill-tempered strangers in many different countries in The Losers. After years of unchallenging “pretty girl” parts, that should be enough.
Instead, Zoë’s newest movie found itself fighting some lousy and undeserved pre-publicity and the worst storm of the year, but Colombiana still struggled its way into theaters this last weekend. It didn’t make it to number one: the surprising mega-hit The Help hung on to that spot. But it did better than any other new release or any other hangers-on, generating a respectable $11.5 million in a moderate number of theaters–many of them empty or shut down on opening weekend because of Hurricane Irene.
So the question is: does this young woman have the star power to “open a movie”–to get people into the theater just because she’s the star? The answer seems to be a qualified but very firm ‘yes.’
Consider these facts:
- You couldn’t have picked a worst weekend to open. Late August is where bad movies go to die, and attendance is habitually low.
- The studio, for reasons still not clear, didn’t allow reviewers to see Colombiana before opening day. That’s usually a sign of a bad, bad movie (e.g., Conan)…but in this case the reviews, though mixed, have been far from horrible. So what was that about?
- A made-for-the-occasion “proColombia” pressure group decided to launch an anti-Colombiana campaign even before they (or anyone) had seen the picture, based–as they admitted–on nothing more than the title and the theatrical trailer. Combine that with the lack of buzz because of the no-preview decision, and you’re trudging uphill already.
- Hurricane Irene. Need we say more?
But now…look at the results.
- A $11.5 million first weekend. Yes, it’s a $40 million picture, but there are many weeks to go, all of foreign distribution (and Besson movies almost always do well overseas), and the inevitably hot-hot DVD release still down the road. Already 25% of the way into the black, all indications are this movie won’t blow the roof off the box office, but it’ll do just fine, thank you.
- It did better than Saldaña’s last action picture, the heavily promoted but unappreciated The Losers
- It did better in its first weekend than Luc Besson’s last movie, To Paris With Love, and that starred John Travolta, no less.
- And here’s the most interesting thing by far: exit polls for FilmDistrict show that more than half of the people who went were women under 28–not the normal action/thriller crowd–and that the Latino movie fan community came out big time. That’s you guys, folks, and you are a market that every studio in town is after these days.
So: can Zoë Saldaña open a picture? In spite of bad publicity and even worse weather, the answer is pretty obvious, isn’t it? And we are the ones who are helping her get there!
