Tyler Perry meets the green

Weekend box office: The short news is that "Horton Hears a Who!" landed in the top spot again, with $25 million in ticket sales adding to a $86 million gross. Digging deeper, though, are some interesting stories.

"Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns" (above), for instance: It opened with $20 million without benefit of a big ad campaign or word-of-mouth advance screenings. Why? because Perry has a devoted audience that will turn out ASAP to see his movies. (The 11:30 a.m. show on Friday that I attended was about half full -- usually there are only two or three people in a theater at that time, and they're usually sleeping something off.)

Perry may be beginning to hit the wall, though. "Meet the Browns" made an eensy bit less than "Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?" last October and a whole lot less than "Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion" two years ago. Still, "Browns" managed almost $10,000 per theater, and that's something.

The clock's also running out for Asian horror remakes, as another movie not screened for the press, "The Shutter," pulled in a punk $10 million. The real story, though, is the rather shockingly low $10 million returns for "Drillbit Taylor". Admittedly it's a rather shockingly poor movie, but when has that ever stopped audiences? Either Judd Apatow's not the broad box office draw the pundits would have you believe or Owen Wilson's offscreen troubles have put a genuine dent in his insouciant onscreen image. Or moviegoers looked at the ads, saw a family film, and just decided to go see "Horton" again.

Here's the Box Office Mojo chart, and here's Leonard Klady.