Leatherheads Severely Disappoints

Leatherheads, directed by and starring George Clooney, was a major disappointment in its opening weekend. The romantic comedy centering around two football players and a woman football journalist, lost out to blackjack drama 21, by earning only $13.5 million.

Starring Kate Bosworth and Jim Sturgess, 21 surprised Hollywood insiders by winning at the box office this weekend with only a $15.1 million gross, according to estimates from Entertainment Weekly.

Doing so made 21 the second film this year to top the box office for consecutive weeks; the other being Horton Hears a Who! which has earned $46.5 million thus far in the United States. And, with 21 losing only 37 percent of its audience, it looks like it could repeat next week too.

Also opening this weekend was Nim's Island, starring Abigail Breslin and Jodie Foster, which earned an estimated $13.3 million.

The estimated returns of Nim's Island and Leatherheads are so close that Nim's could very well surpass Clooney's film.

The future of Leatherheads looks especially grim because of a combination of an older audience (88 percent of the people who went to see the film were over 25), grim reviews, and the fact that the movie cannot go overseas because football is American soccer.