'Die Hard' action beats love stories at box office

'BEAUTIFUL CREATURES' MISSES AUDIENCE

News Corp's 20th Century Fox spent about $92 million to produce the latest "Die Hard" sequel. It hit theaters on Valentine's Day, and, in addition to "Safe Haven," faced another romance movie in "Beautiful Creatures". Fox promoted "Die Hard" with commercials encouraging moviegoers to "get some action" on Valentine's Day.

"Safe Haven" stars "Dancing with the Stars" alum Hough as a young woman who meets a widower played by Duhamel. Privately held Relativity Media produced the film for $28 million.

The studio said "Safe Haven" was on track to finish second for the Thursday-to-Monday period, with total sales of $34 million, beating industry projections.

"Beautiful Creatures," the supernatural love story about a teenage girl with magical powers, made its debut with $7.5 million at the box office to rank sixth in the three-day tallies.

The film was another of several Hollywood films aiming to capture the "Twilight" and "Hunger Games" audiences of teenage girls with adaptations of popular young adult novels.

Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros. executive vice president of theatrical distribution, said "Beautiful Creatures," produced by Alcon Entertainment for about $60 million, had a number of competitors on a busy weekend and the studio had hoped for a bigger turnout. "It just missed the audience," he said.

In fourth place, family film "Escape from Planet Earth," pulled in $16.1 million over the three days. The $40 million animated movie features the voices of Brendan Fraser and Sarah Jessica Parker in the story of an astronaut who finds trouble when he responds to a distress call from an alien planet.

Zombie romance "Warm Bodies," in its third weekend of release, took the No 5 slot with $9 million over the three days.

"Identity Thief" was released by Universal Pictures, a unit of Comcast Corp. The privately held Weinstein Co released "Escape from Planet Earth". Lions Gate Entertainment's Summit studio released "Warm Bodies". "Beautiful Creatures" was produced by Alcon Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc.