During its first week in United States theaters, “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” managed to bring in earnings amounting to $32.3 million, according to data released by box-office tracking firm Media by Numbers.
The Sony Pictures production stars Kevin James in the role of a shopping mall security guard that rises above his condition of a pathetic, overweight and clumsy man to become a hero that fights evil and saves the day.
Half-way through the movie, Paul Blart is granted the opportunity to prove everybody who underestimates him wrong, when a group of criminals try to rob the mall and he is the only one standing in their way.
“Mall Cop” was directed by Steve Carr, with a script written by Kevin James and Nick Bakay and it also features Keir O'Donnell as one of the villains, Raini Rodriguez as Paul’s daughter, Shirley Knight as his mother and Bobby Cannavale as a SWAT team leader.
Following the above-mentioned comedy on the box office chart was Clint Eastwood’s „Gran Torino,” with $23 million, for a total since debut of $74 million, while the biopic about Christopher Wallace, better known as Biggie Smalls or Notorious B.I.G., a Brooklyn rapper who was killed in 1997, called „Notorious” came in third with $21.5 million.
In „Gran Torino,” Eastwood give a valuable lesson about making a good movie via the story of widower Walt Kowalski, portrayed by Clint Eastwood himself, who loves only three things in this world, his yellow Labrador, Daisy, his lawn and his '72 Ford, which nobody should dare even touch, if in their right mind.
Fourth on the chart came horror movie „My Bloody Valentine 3-D,” which earned $21.4 million, whereas the adaptation of Lois Duncan’s 1971 children’s story about kids trying to rescue stray animals „Hotel for Dogs” made $17.7 million.
„My Bloody Valentine” is a remake after a 1981 horror movie and follows the plot line drawn by the original picture, beginning with the story of Harry Warden, a coal miner living in town of Harmony who has killed all his fellow miners after an accident that forced them to fight for the little air left in the mine.
After one year of being in coma, Warden wakes up and starts murdering people before the local sheriff shoots him dead, while ten years after that, he returns to Harmony and goes on a killing spree, choosing as his trademark to leave Valentine’s Day cards with actual human hearts.
