A fair number of people buy Robocop for a dollar, the Kevin Hart money train keeps on a-trucking, corporate American slaves keep falling for Valentine’s Day weekend’s evil, image-shaming ways, and Other Box Office News.

This past weekend saw Valentine’s Day happen and with it came a whole bunch of romance films designed to make single people like me feel like loner miserable sods.  Of the quartet, the best performing of the lot was the Kevin Hart-fronted About Last Night which rode the America-exclusive Kevin Hart money train to a comfortable second place, $25 million and an $11,403 per-screen average.  Although the film was still trounced by The LEGO Movie, which made almost double About Last Night and only dropped 27% between weekends, it also had the disability of being on 1,500 less screens than LEGO.  You know, because films fronted by black people, and especially Kevin Hart, don’t make money despite growing evidence to the contrary.

In second place in regards to openers, but third place in the weekend cos we don’t count five day openings around these here parts, was the absolutely necessary 2014 PG-13 remake of Robocop which pulled in $21 million and a $6,435 per-screen average in a counter-programming choice likely prompted thanks to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929.  Which at least makes it relevant viewing.  Thanks to all the murder.  This really isn’t a hard joke to get, people.  Bringing up the rear is Endless Love in fifth place with $13 million, once again cementing Alex Pettyfer as somebody that nobody wants to see in their movies and could he please just go away already?  And bringing up Endless Love’s rear is an early contender for 2014’s Most Unintentional Comedy in the shape of A New York Winter’s Tale (which goes by the less hyper-specifically-stupid title of Winter’s Tale on your side of the pond); $7 million for seventh place.  I could make a joke here but, quite frankly, the film’s trailer is just one big joke in of itself, so I may as well just link you to that.

Those preferring their corporately-mandated celebration of just how great and wonderful it is to have a partner who loves them for who they are and suck it you single people who are clearly single by choice because they’re so weird for not being in such wonderful relationships that are always happy and oh this is the life darling why don’t you go out and get yourself a romantic partner UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE ALONE LIKE THE SAD PATHETIC LOSER CALLIE PET-

(TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, PLEASE STAND BY)

Ahem.  Elsewhere, A Beijing Love Story, for those who like their Valentine’s fare to be of the foreign persuasion and whose respective partners politely but firmly turned down the idea of watching Oldboy instead, made $128,000 from nine screens.  The acclaimed Chilean-Spanish drama Gloria continued its expansion, making another $301,000 from 92 screens to bring its domestic total to the fringes of $1 million.  Less successfully, Philomena went wide again, for some unknowable reason, and though it made another $1.5 million, almost 91% more than it did last weekend, it only managed to make $1,244 per screen.  Finally, before we get to the part that matters, the quartet of brand new entries meant that it was a mass dumping session for the rest of the chart, with the biggest bottomers being Vampire Academy and Labor Day.  But not That Awkward Moment, though.  That’s still here.  For some reason.

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Dead or alive, you’re reading this Full List.  Wait, is that how the line goes?  I have no idea.

Box Office Results: Friday 14th February 2014 – Sunday 16th February 2014

1] The LEGO Movie

$50,015,000 / $130,318,000

I am officially taking bets on how much this film will end up closing at.  I’m guessing it’ll be somewhere way north of $230 million.  Any takers?  Winner gets to watch Clone High with me!  Why are you all running away?

2] About Last Night

$25,692,000 / NEW

Do you want to know why it’s still a struggle for R-rated comedies fronted by black people to get made in Hollywood, despite consistently high commercial performance (and that’s without mentioning Tyler Perry)?  It’s because these films make squat outside of America, and Hollywood is all about that foreign dollar at the moment.  One, of course, could argue that that problem could easily be solved with this thing called foreign advertising, but we live in an industry that still regards female-fronted comedy hits Bridesmaids and The Heat to be fluke exceptions.  If female-fronted R-rated comedies are still facing trouble getting made, then I don’t see black-star-fronted ones being a simple “pitch-immediate-green-light” process any time soon, either.

3] Robocop

$21,700,000 / $26,400,000 / NEW

I still have not seen the original Robocop yet, which is why @MrMazz handled reviewing duties on this remake, but I will do soon.  I have a friend on my Film Studies course who went and saw this with some of her friends at the weekend and, having also seen and loved the original, she hated it too.  In fact, she vastly preferred the Captain America: The Winter Soldier trailer that came beforehand, because she’s a huge fan of [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS] so take that for what it’s worth.

4] The Monuments Men

$15,500,000 / $44,170,000

This is already George Clooney’s highest grossing film as a director ever.  Considering the fact that only two of those ended up in a proper wide release (2,000+ theatres) and this one opened on more screens than any of them saw in their entire lifetimes, that’s really not saying much.

5] Endless Love

$13,206,000 / NEW

So, what is this movie about?  Seriously, I have seen the poster littering about my various cinemas for the last two months but not once have I seen a single trailer for it.  I mean, I also refuse to find out because, unless it’s for a film I care about, I don’t go actively searching for trailers; they play in front of my films or they don’t exist, is my mantra.  So, can anyone tell me the premise of this movie?  Answers on a postcard, preferably.

6] Ride Along

$8,721,000 / $116,095,000

This finally hits the UK in two weeks and you better believe that I’m going to go and see what all the fuss was about!  Hopefully it’s like 21 Jump Street and I can see what the fuss is all about, I could do with a good laugh.

7] Winter’s Tale

$7,270,000 / NEW

So this is my film of choice for next weekend, when it comes out here in the UK.  I saw the trailer for it three times last week, before every single one of my films.  The first time: “No.”  The second time: “Noooooope!”  The third time: “Nnnn-actually…  I do have a Cineworld Unlimited card and this does look unintentionally hysterical.  Besides, if it sucks, now I’m only losing two and a bit hours of my life instead of that and £8 of my money!”  Plus, apparently Will Smith shows up as Lucifer and that is a tempting treat that I just cannot turn down.

8] Frozen

$6,217,000 / $376,407,000

We’re going to lose this either next weekend or the weekend after, but I pretty much guarantee that it will be right back here again after it wins that Best Animated Feature award at the Oscars in two weeks.  I mean, it’s basically the only thing that will get people back into the theatre, by this point, seeing as I can scientifically prove to you that every single family in America has seen Frozen by now.*

*Callie Petch is not a registered scientist of any kind and you should not take a single word he says as scientific fact.

9] Lone Survivor

$4,086,000 / $118,413,000

It ain’t me.  It ain’t me.  I ain’t no Senator’s son, son, son.  It ain’t me.  It ain’t me, no.  I ain’t no fortunate one.

10] That Awkward Moment

$3,465,000 / $21,528,000

Michael B. Jordan deserves better.

Dropped Out: Vampire Academy, The Nut Job, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Labor Day

Callie Petch fell in love alone on a stage in the reflective age.