Battle at the Box Office 3/12

Everyone who follows the weekend box office totals was waiting with bated breath to see just how terrible John Carter was going to do and the answer is: pretty terrible.  With a budget well north of $200 million, John Carter only managed $30.2 million and was handily defeated by The Lorax in it’s second week (The Lorax made another $38.8 million BTW).  The blame for John Carter’s bombing seems to be going toward the marketing, which didn’t really explain who or what John Carter was.  For this time of year, John Carter was beaten by the likes of last year’s Battle: Los Angeles and the atrocious 10,000 BC and way, way below other live action Disney blockbusters, only barely beating Prince of Persia.  John Carter made a decent $70 million internationally but Disney will probably still be burned pretty bad by this blunder.  In other news, Project X and Act of Valor moved down to third and fourth place, respectively while newcomer, Silent House, rounded out the top 5 with $6.6 million.  Eddie Murphy continued his run of terrible bombs with A Thousand Words, which came in sixth with $6.1 million and puts it among the, forgotten, likes of Meet Dave and Imagine That (but still far from the pit of despair that is Pluto Nash).