I liked Ashton Kutcher when I first saw him on “That 70’s Show.” I have seen a couple of his movies (Dude, Where’s My Car?, Just Married, and The Butterfly Effect) and never thought I would write these words, but…
Ashton Kutcher movies came out on top of this weekend’s box office.
Not that Ashton is a bad actor, but he hardly seems to be made of the same material from which box office leaders are cut. And lately, all his press seems to have come from being married to Demi Moore and as the producer of MTV’s “Punk’d.” But this past weekend, he “punk’d” everyone by starring in the top two grossing movies at the theater.
The top grossing movie of the weekend was Open Season. It earned $23 million – $8 of that belonging to my family. We took our two year old to see this animated film that had voiceovers by Ashton and Martin Lawrence among others. This cute little film was Sony’s 11th number one opener of 2006.
Number two at the box office was The Guardian, which starred Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner. This action/drama film, that earned $17.6 million this past weekend, follows a troubled young Coast Guard recruit (Kutcher) as a seasoned rescue swimmer (Costner) takes him in. And as I did not expect to see Kutcher at the top of the box office, we have not seen Kevin Costner there lately either. This was his best opening since 1995’s Waterworld.
Other winners at the box office were Jackass: Number Two ($14 million), School for Scoundrels ($9.1 million), Jet Li’s Fearless ($4.7 million), The Rock’s Gridiron Gang ($4.5 million), and Edward Norton’s latest effort, The Illusionist ($2.8 million). The only one I hope to see is The Illusionist. Edward Norton is one of my favorites, but he has not done much since 2003’s blockbuster The Italian Job.