Jackie Robinson, Sylvester Stallone and the Evil Dead are as remotely different from one another as possible, but all three go head-to-head on home media as 42: The Jackie Robinson Story, Bullet to the Head and Evil Dead street this week on Blu-Ray.
42 was released in theaters this past April just in time for the start of the 2013 Major League Baseball season and now finds itself on Blu-Ray precisely for the league's All-Star game. 42 is Jackie Robinson's biography onscreen detailing his initial year playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers as the first player to break the color barrier in the sport in 1947.
It wasn't no surprise that superhero juggernaut Iron Man 3 and Baz Luhrmann's stylistic retelling of F. Scott Fitzgerald's American classic would pack a 1-2 punch during this weekend's Mother's Day frame.
But was anyone expecting Luhrman's The Great Gatsby to benefit from being pushed back from a Oscar-bait holiday release to being sandwiched between two of summer's most anticipated releases, a spot dreaded by many jockeying for heated positions? $51 million says differently.
Now two weeks deep into an already lucrative summer movie season, the studio tentpoles on deck in the coming weeks have their work cut out for them. And will any be able to catch up to Iron Man 3's overperforming haul?
Summer might not technically start until late June, but for the movie industry, the first week of May has been the traditional kickoff as the movie-going masses clamor to the first must-see event of the year.
2013 is no different as for the seventh consecutive year, Marvel Studios takes full advantage of the being the first big summer blockbuster of out the gate with the highly anticipated follow-up to last summer's The Avengers.
Attempting to bring down last year's record-breaking $207 million opening weekend behemoth seemed a bit too ambitious even for Marvel, however Iron Man 3 claimed the all-time #2 spot almost one year to the day with a franchise-best $175.3 million.
