Box Office: The Vow Leads

Leading the busy frame was the spectacular debut of the romantic drama The Vow which bowed to an estimated $41.7M as the Channing Tatum-Rachel McAdams love story connected with its target audience of young women. The film's strong performance is attributable to an agreeably melodramatic premise – a devoted husband strives to rekindle the love of his amnesiac wife after a devastating car accident – and, probably more importantly, its two leads.  Channing Tatum has been building a devoted fanbase for some time now, and is maturing nicely as an actor and movie star, while McAdams has a cross-demographic appeal that is damn near universal and perfectly suited to romances.

With an emotional romance in first place, an unabashedly masculine action movie occupied second place, as Safe House earned an estimated $39.3 million since Friday.  Denzel Washington did score the second largest opening of his career, behind American Gangster's 43.6 million debut in 2007.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, the latest established franchise to feature Dwayne Johnson stepping into a leading role despite no previous affiliation with the series, enjoyed a strong debut in third place with an estimated $27.6M from 3,470 locations.

In 1999, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace opened amidst perhaps the biggest hype-fest that the world has ever known, and now, thirteen years later, a 3D re-release of the first Star Wars prequel re-opened to $23.0 million in estimated earnings.

The found-footage super hero hit Chronicle followed with an estimated $12.3M dropping only 44% in its second weekend which was terrific given the level of new action competition.

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M.V.