‘The Big Wedding’ box office: All-star ‘family comedy’ bombs (photo: Susan Sarandon, Robert De Niro, Robin Williams in ‘The Big Wedding’) Despite an all-star cast that includes Oscar winner Diane Keaton (Annie Hall), Les Misérables‘ Amanda Seyfried, this year’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook), Oscar winner Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking), Oscar winner Robin Williams (Good Will Hunting), Topher Grace, Ben Barnes, and Katherine Heigl, the R-rated, Justin Zackham-directed family comedy The Big Wedding opened with a disastrous $7.5m at 2,633 North American locations according to studio estimates found at Box Office Mojo. The Lionsgate release averaged a paltry $2,848 per screen. Expect domestic exhibitors to file for divorce in the very near future. Certainly not helping matters was the film’s critical reception. The Big Wedding has a dismal 4% approval rating and 3.3/10 average among Rotten Tomatoes‘ top critics. Next to that, Michael Bay’s comedy thriller Pain & Gain is a masterpiece: 47% approval rating and 5.7/10 average. Pain & Gain tops anemic domestic box office Starring Ted‘s Mark Wahlberg and G.I. Joe: Retaliation‘s Dwayne Johnson, Bay’s masterwork opened at the top of the (anemic) domestic box office, with a so-so $20m at 3,277 sites, averaging a just as so-so $6,103 per-theater average. (See also: Pain & Gain box office - early estimates.) Okay, so Pain & Gain had quite a bigger opening than Dwayne Johnson’s Snitch ($13.16m) and Mark Wahlberg’s Broken City ($8.96m) — but those are not really good comparisons, considering that Pain & Gain is a Michael Bay movie, starring both Wahlberg and Johnson. That’s not a good enough combo, apparently. Maybe if Bay had thrown in a few mean-spirited robots things might have turned out differently. (Broken City also features Russell Crowe, but he could hardly be considered anything close to a box-office draw these days.) Tom Cruise’s Oblivion down 52% This weekend’s no. 2 movie was the Joseph Kosinski / Tom Cruise / Morgan Freeman sci-fier Oblivion, down a not-unexpected (but not good, either) 53%, collecting $17.44m. After ten days, Oblivion has taken in $64.73m domestically, in addition to a much healthier $134.1m internationally (after three weekends). Worldwide grand total: $198.83m, which means the $120-160m-budgeted Oblivion will in all likelihood be crossing the $200m milestone on Monday. That’s good news, as Oblivion will likely plummet at the domestic box-office next weekend, following the US/Canada debut of Shane Black / Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man 3. At no. 3 was the baseball biopic 42, featuring Chadwick Boseman and Harrison Ford, which earned $10.72m, for a cume of $69.07m. Though not bad for a $40m-budgeted movie, at this stage it seems nearly impossible for 42 to reach the $100m milestone in North America. Harrison Ford or no, international box-office prospects are close to nil at best, as Jackie Robinson is basically a nonentity outside the United States, baseball is popular in only a handful of countries (South Korea, Japan), and U.S. race relations are of concern to Americans — as people elsewhere care about their own interethnic woes. The no. 4 movie was The Big Wedding, followed by DreamWorks Animation’s The Croods, featuring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, and Emma Stone, with $6.6m and $163m cume. Channing Tatum / Dwayne Johnson’s G.I. Joe: Retaliation was no. 6 with $3.62m ($116.39m cume, in addition to a much stronger $232.7m internationally), followed by (guest stars) Lindsay Lohan / Charlie Sheen’s Scary Movie 5 with $3.45m ($27.49m cume), Gerard Butler’s Olympus Has Fallen with $2.76m ($93.07m cume), and Bradley Cooper / Ryan Gosling’s The Place Beyond the Pines with $2.69m ($16.2m cume). Note: There could be some switching around when box-office actuals are released on Monday, as G.I. Joe: Retaliation / Scary Movie 5 had pretty close numbers, and so did Olympus Has Fallen and The Place Beyond the Pines. Also worth noting is that although Scary Movie 5 is the only "obvious" box-office bomb found in the previous paragraph, none of the aforementioned four movies could be considered domestic hits in relation to their production costs. Though made for a reported $15m and despite a number of positive reviews, Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines is in fact Ryan Gosling’s latest box-office disappointment. In fact, the film has to date fared only slightly better than Bradley Cooper’s late 2012 critical and commercial domestic bomb The Words (cume: $11.49m). Rounding out the top twelve movies at the North American box office were Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park 3D with $2.31m ($42m cume); Jeff Nichols’ well-received Southern-set Mud, starring Reese Witherspoon, Matthew McConaughey, and Tye Sheridan, with $2.18m; and the Evil Dead remake with $2m ($51.86m cume). Note: Unless otherwise specified, all box-office cumes are domestic totals. Susan Sarandon, Robert De Niro, Robin Williams The Big Wedding photo: Lionsgate. This post was originally published at Alt Film Guide (http://www.altfg.com/). Not to be republished without permission.