Weekend Box Office (03/13/11): Battle: Los Angeles hits hard, Red Riding Hood lands softly, while Disney's Mars Needs Moms crashes.

As expected, the heavily-hyped Battle: Los Angeles (teaser/review) topped the box office this weekend, grossing an estimated $36 million. If that number holds, it will be the twelfth-biggest March opening in history, and a rock-solid start for a would-be tentpole that cost (depending on who you asked) $80-100 million. There was talk that the picture would break out and perhaps reach $50-60 million, but that was frankly silly. We've been spoiled the last few years, with massive March openings like 300 ($70 million), Watchmen ($55 million), and the astonishingly-huge Alice in Wonderland ($116 million). But generally speaking, March releases that aren't animated don't even top $35 million. We didn't have a single live-action $35 million opener in March until 2005 (The Ring Two), and there have been only five others since then prior to this weekend (the three above examples, plus Wild Hogs at $39 million, 10,000 BC at $35 million, so getting anywhere close to $40 million in the third month of the year has to be considered a win, especially without any kind of 3D or IMAX advantage.

The critically-savaged film (which was as much a case of critics expecting another Independence Day) scored a B from Cinemascore, with an A- from under-25 audiences and an A from males under-18. It remains to be seen if real-life disaster in Japan effected the film's weekend take in any way, pro or con. You could argue that some audiences were at home non-fiction devastation instead of paying to see CGI-destruction, or you could argue that audiences responded to the 'comforting escape' that the unlikely (aliens from another world attack!) scenario provided. Regardless, and sometimes its just a great trailer, the film counts as the fourth-consecutive number-one opening for Sony this year, although its likely that they won't have another number one opening this year until The Smurfs in early-August (Priest won't top the second weekend of Thor or the opening of Bridesmaids, and Bad Teacher looks fun but it won't top Green Lantern).

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