Love trumps action as 'Vow' dominates

LOS ANGELES -- Love triumphed over action at the weekend box office with a No. 1 debut for the romantic drama "The Vow."

Studio estimates Sunday show the love story starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum took in $41.7 million to come in ahead of two new action tales and the first 3-D "Star Wars" reissue.

Landing a close second with $39.3 million was Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds' action thriller "Safe House." Coming in solidly at No. 3 was Dwayne Johnson's family action sequel "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" with $27.6 million.

And adding to George Lucas' riches was the 3-D premiere of "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace," which was No. 4 with $23 million. That raises the lifetime domestic total for "Phantom Menace to $454.1 million.

This was the first non-holiday weekend that four movies opened with more than $20 million each, said Paul Dergarabedian, analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com. The only other time when four new releases did that well was over Christmas weekend in 2008, he said.

"It felt like a summer weekend to me," Dergarabedian said. "This was like a great big valentine from Hollywood to the audience, or from the audience to Hollywood."

The four big debuts maintained Hollywood's strong business during the normally sleepy winter. Overall domestic revenues totaled $193 million, up 19.3 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Just Go with It" led with $30.5 million.

Timed to Valentine's Day on Tuesday, "The Vow" stars McAdams as a woman who awakens in the hospital after a car wreck with no memory of her husband (Tatum) and the last five years of her life.

Women accounted for 72 percent of the audience for "The Vow," whose receipts in just its first two days exceeded the movie's $30 million production budget. "There are certain movies that women, no pun intended, vow they are going to see, and this is that kind of movie," said Rory Bruer, head of distribution for Sony.