LOS ANGELES (Variety.com)

After living through a pandemic for nearly two years, Americans, as it turns out, were in desperate need of a laugh.

That may explain why Paramount’s go-for-broke action comedy Jackass Forever triumphed at the domestic box office while Roland Emmerich’s disaster epic Moonfall turned into an epic disaster.

Jackass Forever, the fourth installment in the ongoing saga of projectiles to the groin, collected US$23 million from 3,604 North American locations in its debut, landing on the higher end of expectations. The latest Jackass, starring Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Wee Man and other daredevils from MTV days, had been widely expected to win the weekend, but its victory is still surprising and impressive because it has been some time since a pure comedy has claimed the top spot on box office charts. In catapulting to first place, Jackass Forever finally took down reigning champion Spider-Man: No Way Home, which has spent six of the last seven weeks at No. 1.

Jackass Forever has been a (unexpected?) hit with critics, notching a strong 90 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes and “B+” CinemaScore from audience members. Variety’s chief film critic Owen Gleiberman had positive things to say, writing in his review that “Johnny Knoxville and company are now middle aged, but that hasn’t slowed their juvenile masochistic fervor”.

And, with a US$10-million production budget, Jackass Forever will be laughing all the way to the bank.

“It’s extremely hard to keep it fresh and funny for this long, but ‘Jackass’ is doing that,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research.

“At a cost of only US$10 million, the film is going to be very profitable.”

Moonfall, the weekend’s other new nationwide release, has less to celebrate. The science-fiction catastrophe film crash-landed on the lower end of projections, bringing in US$10.1 million from 3,446 venues. Those ticket sales are potentially problematic because Moonfall cost $140 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive independent films in history. Commercial sentiment may not help; moviegoers stuck the film with an unenthusiastic “C+” CinemaScore. Unless the movie becomes a huge hit overseas, Moonfall likely will not become a financial success.

Emmerich, having turned Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 into commercial cash-cows, had once been the premier chronicler of big-budget catastrophe. But in the case of Moonfall, which stars Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, John Bradley, Michael Pena and Donald Sutherland and centres on efforts to prevent the moon from colliding with Earth, the film doesn’t offer the kind of stress-free escapism that pandemic-fatigued audiences are looking for.

“At the moment, with the world coming apart in real time, who wants to sit through a disaster story? It’s more fun to laugh at Jackass,” said Gross.