'Eat, Pray, Love' loses out to 'Expendables' at box-office

The long-awaited film about a 40-something woman's midlife crisis raked in USD 23.7 million in the opening weekend, compared to USD 35 million brought in by the action flick.

'Eat, Pray, Love', starring Roberts, Javier Bardem, and James Franco opened to mixed reviews and lukewarm box-office collections.

"The movie left me with a feeling of being trapped with a person of privilege who won't stop with the whine, whine, whine," said Rolling Stone magazine in it's review of the film, adapted from Elizabeth Gilbert's award-winning memoir about her travels to India, Indonesia and Italy.

The Los Angeles Times called the film "superficial". "It is unlikely to change anybody's life or even to provoke emotions anywhere near as intense as those experienced by its intrepid heroine. Its span may be global, but its scope is modest, and it accepts a certain superficiality as the price of useful insight. Watch. Smile. Go home and dream of Brazilians in Bali," said it's review about the film which was made on a budget of USD 60 million.

The film banked heavily on the appeal of Roberts, now 42, who became the one of the first women to command a fee of USD 20 million, thanks to her successful romantic comedies.
'The Expendables' on the other hand, also directed by Stallone, stars action veterans Jason Statham, Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren.

The movie is about a team of mercenaries headed to South America on a mission to overthrow a dictator's regime.