“Anger Management” bullied its way to the top of the box office – raking in $44.5 million over the weekend.
The Jack Nicholson-Adam Sandler comedy grabbed more cash than the rest of the top 12 flicks combined. Playing in 3,551 theaters, it averaged $12,532 a cinema.
It was a big boost for Hollywood, after four straight weekends of slumping returns. Sandler plays a mild-mannered man railroaded into anger counseling with a therapist, played by Nicholson, who puts him through ordeals that make him crack.
“The comedy genre this year is just incapable of burning out,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. “People are looking to blow off steam. What better way than seeing a movie that combines Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler?”
Last weekend’s No. 1, “Phone Booth,” the sniper-loose-in-Midtown flick with Colin Farrell, fell to second place with $7.5 million.
The other big release, Rob Zombie’s gross-out horror story, “House of 1,000 Corpses,” which sat on the shelf for several years, was No. 7 with $3.4 million in 595 theaters, for a $5,714 average.
In third place was “What a Girl Wants,” with $6.7 million, followed by “Bringing Down the House,” $4.6 million, and “A Man Apart,” with $4.5 million.