Jackass Forever catapults to box office summit as Moonfall craters

Los Angeles

AFTER living through a pandemic for nearly 2 years, cinemagoers, as it turns out, were in desperate need of a laugh.

That may explain why Paramount's go-for-broke action comedy Jackass Forever triumphed at the North American box office last weekend while Roland Emmerich's disaster epic Moonfall turned into an epic disaster.

Jackass Forever, the fourth installment in the ongoing saga of projectiles to the groin, collected US$23 million from 3,604 North American locations in its debut, landing on the higher end of expectations.

The latest Jackass, starring Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Wee Man and other daredevils from MTV days, had been widely expected to win the weekend, but its victory is still surprising and impressive because it has been some time since a pure comedy has claimed the top spot on box office charts.

In catapulting to first place, Jackass Forever finally took down reigning champion Spider-Man: No Way Home, which has spent six of the last 7 weeks at No 1.

Jackass Forever has been an unexpected hit with critics, notching a strong 90 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes and B+ on CinemaScore from audience members.

Variety's chief film critic Owen Gleiberman had positive things to say, writing in his review: "Johnny Knoxville and company are now middle aged, but that has not slowed their juvenile masochistic fervour". And with a US$10 million production budget, Jackass Forever will be laughing all the way to the bank.

"It's extremely hard to keep it fresh and funny for this long, but Jackass is doing that," said David Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. "At a cost of only US$10 million, the film is going to be very profitable."

Moonfall, the weekend's other new nationwide release, has less to celebrate. The science-fiction catastrophe film crash-landed on the lower end of projections, bringing in US$10.1 million from 3,446 venues.

Those ticket sales are potentially problematic because Moonfall cost US$140 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive independent films in history.

Commercial sentiment may not help; moviegoers stuck the film with an unenthusiastic C+ on CinemaScore. Unless the movie becomes a huge hit overseas, Moonfall likely will not become a financial success.

Emmerich, having turned Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 into commercial cash-cows, had once been the premier chronicler of big-budget catastrophes.

But Moonfall, which stars Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, John Bradley, Michael Pena and Donald Sutherland, and centres on efforts to prevent the moon from colliding with Earth, is not offering the kind of stress-free escapism that pandemic-fatigued audiences are looking for.

"At the moment, with the world coming apart in real time, who wants to sit through a disaster story? It's more fun to laugh at Jackass," said Gross. REUTERS