Angelina Jolie -- whose career had been on the skids with the flops "Original Sin" and "Life or Something Like It," plus a weak return on last summer's "Tomb Raider" sequel -- delivered another turkey with "Beyond Borders."
A downbeat story of doomed romance between humanitarian-aid workers (Jolie and Clive Owen), "Beyond Borders" opened at No. 11 with just $2 million.
The overall box office soared, with the top 12 movies taking in $121.1 million, up 39 percent from the same weekend last year.
"Scary Movie 3" was a lesson in resurrecting a declining franchise. Created by the Wayans brothers, "Scary Movie" was a surprise hit in summer 2000, with a total gross of $157 million. Their "Scary Movie 2" the following spring smacked of a rush job and did less than half the business of its predecessor.
Miramax, whose Dimension banner releases the "Scary Movie" flicks, tapped David Zucker, part of the team behind the disaster-film spoof "Airplane!" and the police parody "The Naked Gun," to direct "Scary Movie 3."
The audience was mainly younger than 25, but Zucker's involvement helped bring in older adults, Miramax cofounder Bob Weinstein said.
"David Zucker almost semi-invented this genre," Weinstein said. "You have those people who loved `Airplane!' but said, ah, `Scary Movie,' that's not for me, then going, oh, Zucker's doing it?"
Miramax also broadened the audience to younger teens by toning down the raunchy sight gags, holding "Scary Movie 3" to a PG-13 rating. The first two "Scary Movie" installments were rated R.
"The traditional wisdom is you don't mess with a franchise formula because you run the risk of alienating the core audience," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. "In this case, the combination of retooling it and making it more accessible with a PG-13 rating was a perfect combination."
