Zac Efron's '17 Again' Takes Over North American Box Office

Movie

With Miley Cyrus' 'Hannah Montana: The Movie' sliding down fast from the first place, Zac Efron-starring comedy '17 Again' rises to the expectation and debuts at the top of weekend box office.

April 20, 2009

AceShowbiz -

Zac Efron has got another #1 feature film on his sleeves as his latest comedy "17 Again" debuted atop the North American box office over the three-day weekend. Opened to a $9.5 million bow on Friday, April 17, the Burr Steers-directed movie went on to collect $23.7 million from approximately 4,200 screens at 3,255 sites.

Scoring nearly $4 million more than expected, the movie about a 37-year-old man getting another chance at life when he is transformed back to the age of 17 has exceeded analysts' box-office projections around the low $20 million. This film, in addition, marked the third #1 bow for Disney's star Efron following 2007's "Hairspray" and 2008's "High School Musical 3: Senior Year".

While this New Line Cinema comedy knocked Miley Cyrus-starring "Hannah Montana: The Movie" off the top slot on the revenue chart, it didn't outnumber the opening bow of the TV-to-movie adaptation which collected $32.3 million last weekend. It did, on the other hand, sell as many tickets as the last body-swap comedy starring Jennifer Garner, "13 Going on 30".

On the runner-up position was "State of Play". The political thriller starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams pulled in around $10 million less than "17 Again" with $14.1 million. Garnering generally positive reviews, this Universal Pictures movie came in higher than Crowe's previous starring film, "Body of Lies".

Editors' Pick

Meanwhile, slipping to third place was "Hannah Montana: The Movie". This Disney movie about teenage girl with a double life experienced a 58.5|percent| decline in sales to score $13.4 million this week. After 10 days of theatrical screening, the movie in which Taylor Swift makes a cameo appearance raked in $56.9 million.

Fourth place went to "Monsters vs. Aliens". This 3-D animated film from DreamWorks Animation took in another $13.2 million to bring its four week total to about $163.1 million. The additional haul made "Monsters vs. Aliens" the highest grossing movie this year so far. Meanwhile, rounding up the top five box office was "Fast and Furious" with $11.8 million.

Top Ten Movies at Weekend Box Office for April 3 - 5: