Michael Bay’s Pain Gain muscled its way past Tom Cruise’s Oblivion to top the box office this weekend.
Pain Gain, which stars Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson , brought in $20 million during its opening weekend. The movie hasn’t received great reviews, just 47% on Rotten Tomatoes, but Bay’s dark action comedy had no problem finding a large audience.
Paramount president of domestic marketing and distribution Megan Colligan told the Hollywood Reporter : “Michael really aimed to do something that was challenging and polarizing. People who love the movie, love it. It has a unique tone and it also gets very dark.”
Tom Cruise’s latest movie Oblivion topped the box office charts last week with a $37 million opening weekend but didn’t manage to fight off Pain Gain. Cruise’s apocalyptic epic took in another $17 million this weekend to bring its domestic total to $64 million. Oblivion has done pretty well stateside but it is really excelling overseas. World wide, Oblivion has earned close to $200 million.
The Jackie Robinson biopic 42 continues to perform well at the box office. After scoring the biggest opening weekend for a baseball movie in history , 42 has continued to bring in an audience. Last weekend the movie took the third spot on the box office charts with a $10 million take.
The Big Wedding and The Croods complete the top 5 with $7.5 and $6.6 million takes respectively.
Of course, the biggest movie in the world right now is Iron Man 3. Robert Downey Jr.’s latest movie won’t hit the United States until next week but it has already earned $193 million overseas. According to Box Office Mojo , the latest Iron Man movie had a bigger box office opening than The Avengers.