| Paul Blart: Mall Cop | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Steve Carr |
| Produced by | Adam Sandler Kevin James Barry Bernardi |
| Written by | Kevin James Nick Bakay |
| Starring | Kevin James |
| Music by | Waddy Wachtel |
| Cinematography | Russ T. Alsobrook |
| Editing by | Jeff Freeman |
| Studio | Happy Madison Productions Relativity Media |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | January 16, 2009 |
| Running time | 91 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $26 million |
| Box office | $227,126,523[1] |
Paul Blart: Mall Cop is a 2009 crime comedy film written by and starring Kevin James as the title character and directed by Steve Carr. The film was released on January 16, 2009, by Columbia Pictures.
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Paul Blart (Kevin James) is a mild-mannered, occasionally square, overweight security officer who works at patrol in the West Orange Pavilion Mall in West Orange, New Jersey. He lives with his elderly mother Margaret (Shirley Knight) and daughter Maya (Raini Rodriguez), and dreams of being able to join the New Jersey State Police, but he always fails his entrance test due to his hypoglycemia. While on patrol at work riding his Segway PT, Blart noticed a new wig kiosk and its vendor, Amy Anderson (Jayma Mays) and is instantly attracted to her. Back at base, Blart has to take the new guy, Veck Simms (Keir O'Donnell), out on a patrol to train him. At the end of his shift, Blart becomes acquainted with Amy and escorts her to her yellow 1966 Ford Mustang convertible. Amy invites Blart to join her, Veck, and the rest of his friends at American Joe's, and Blart accepts and attends the event. At the event, Blart gets extremely drunk after drinking too much margarita during his nacho eating contest with Leon (Jamal Mixon) and crashes the stage that the band is playing on, culminating with him falling through one of the mall's windows.
On Thanksgiving, Blart feels as though he embarrassed Amy and that she doesn't like him anymore and Maya tries to cheer him up. On Black Friday at the shopping mall, Amy, Stuart (Stephen Rannazzisi), and other of Blart's colleagues are in the bank to cash their paychecks. While a gang of criminals (in disguise as Santa's Little Helpers) suddenly break through the service entrance and take over the mall, Blart is distracted by playing Rock Band in the arcade zone. The criminals clear the mall, placing motion sensors along every entrance and exit doors, and take Amy, Stuart, Leon, and other of Blart's colleagues hostage in the bank. Veck is revealed to be a double agent and the ringleader of the hijackers, and plans to use the credit card codes from all the stores in the mall to steal $30 million and later fly to the Cayman Islands, taking the hostages with him. As Blart leaves the arcade, he noticed that the mall has been taken over and calls the police who later show up outside the front entrance of the mall. Sergeant Howard (Adam Ferrara) instructs Blart to leave the mall immediately, but when Blart sees Amy's car in the parking lot, he realizes that he must rescue Amy and everyone else. The SWAT team soon arrives and Commander James Kent (Bobby Cannavale), who bullied Blart in high school, takes control of the situation. Blart is vastly outnumbered and physically outclassed, but fights against the gang members through improvised measures. Maya shows up to bring Blart his dinner, but Veck's henchmen intercept her and take her hostage as well. After Blart works his way through all of Veck's underlings, he attempts to extract the hostages by pulling them up into an airvent via the rope, but fails after Leon cannot fit and when Veck enters the room, Blart is captured. Veck demands to have the credit card codes and Blart is forced to fling him the phone that contains the codes. Veck escapes with the codes and holds Amy and Maya at gunpoint.
Blart steals the mall's display minivan and pursue Veck to the airport, where Veck attempt to escape in a Cessna Citation III business jet along with Amy and Maya. After a brief fight, Blart cuffs Veck, but Kent pulls his gun on Blart, revealing himself as a mole in the SWAT team and that he was working with Veck the whole time. Kent demands Blart to give him the phone containing the codes, but Blart smashes it on the ground. Before Kent can kill Blart, Chief Brooks (Peter Gerety) shot Kent in his arm; the police reveal themselves and finally arrest Kent and rescue Amy and Maya. The next day, Maya is proud of Blart and he gives Amy a birthday card who in turn kisses him. Sergeant Howard offers Blart his job as a State Trooper, but Blart decides that his place is protecting the people at the mall with Amy and the rest of his friends. During the closing credits, bonus scenes finds Blart and Amy getting married in the mall and riding Segways.
The film began shooting in late February 2008 in Boston.[2] Principal shooting took place at the Burlington Mall in Burlington, Massachusetts after being denied a permit from Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, New Jersey. From late February until mid-April, the mall and its stores were decorated with Christmas decorations, and there was a large prop ball-pit in the main foyer of the mall near the Sears branch, and a Santa's Village at the opposite end near the Macy's branch in the same place that the mall usually puts its own Santa's Village. Interior filming took place mostly at night.
The film received mostly negative reviews from movie critics, although it was a box office success. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a "Rotten" rating of 33%, based on 111 reviews.[3] Metacritic, gives the movie a similarly low approval rating of 39 out of 100, which indicates "generally unfavorable reviews", based on 24 reviews from mainstream critics.[4] Though most critics panned the film, one notable exception was Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop became a surprise hit at the box office. The film ranked number one at the domestic box office with $9,791,368 from 3,144 theaters for an opening day average of $3,105. During the film's entire three day opening weekend, the film remained at number one, grossing a total of $31,832,636, with a per screen average of $10,125, outgrossing its $26 million budget. It grossed $39,234,238 over the entire four day MLK weekend, for a four day average of $12,479. The film was the second best opening of all-time for the MLK weekend, behind 2008's Cloverfield. The film stayed at number one in its second weekend, grossing another $21,623,182, dropping just 32%, and boosting the ten day income to $64,923,380. In its third weekend it dropped to second place with $13,872,751, a 36% decline from the last weekend, for an average of $4,327 from 3,206 theaters, bringing the seventeen day gross to $83,247,655. In its fourth weekend, it dropped to fifth place with $10,884,825, a drop of 22% from the last weekend, for an average of $3,435 from 3,169 theaters, and bringing the 24-day tally to $96,886,687. In its fifth weekend (President's Day weekend), it dropped to sixth place, making another $10,983,319 over the three day span, actually increasing 1%, for an average of $3,704 from 2,965 theaters, and bringing the 31-day total to $109,787,819, having broken the $100 million mark on Friday February 13. Over the four day President's Day weekend, it made $13,574,027 for an average of $4,578, and bringing the 32-day cume to $112,388,524.[5] The film closed on Monday, May 25, 2009, with a final domestic gross of $146,336,178 (the equivalent of about 20.4 million tickets with 2009's $7.18 ticket price), with the three day opening weekend making up 21.75% of the total gross (26.81% for the four day opening weekend). The film has also so far made $36,625,591 internationally, bringing the total worldwide gross to $183,293,131, against a modest $20 million budget.[6]
Paul Blart: Mall Cop was released on DVD, Blu-Ray, and UMD on May 19, 2009. The DVD sold 1,817,747 copies, making US $29,411,146 for the week of May 24, 2009, having only been out for six days, and it ranked number one for DVD sales that week as well.[1] Furthermore, for the week of May 31, 2009, it again made number one on the US DVD Charts as it sold an additional 553,681 copies and making US $9,921,964 for a total of 2,834,826 units sold with earnings of US $46,676,902 as of November 1, 2009.[1] Combined with results from the Box Office and total DVD sales as of November 1, 2009, Paul Blart: Mall Cop has made a total of US $227,126,523.
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