Image Credit: Patti PerretThis one may not be decided until tomorrow as the top two films are only separated by a meager $300,000. It’s interesting that for a weekend that wasn’t generating much attention from Hollywood, both new releases have now grossed over $20 million, creating a real horse race. The Last Exorcism led the charge Friday night, but Takers has come up from behind and is getting mighty close to Exorcism’s gross. Both films well over-performed expectations, with Takers earning an estimated $21 million for the weekend and Exorcism an estimated $21.3 million. It’s likely that either Lionsgate or Sony Pictures has overestimated their Sunday number, though, and we may have a different outcome tomorrow.
If you are to trust the exit polling, The Last Exorcism was universally despised by audiences. According to CinemaScore, the film generated a D with audiences. Not even the younger crowd, which is usually more accepting of movies, could muster more than a failing grade for the documentary-style thriller. Takers fared better, earning a B from audiences, with women under 25 enjoying the film the most.
The rest of the weekend was dominated by holdovers, with the most recent releases falling most. Lottery Ticket dropped a steep 65 percent while Piranha 3-D lost 60 percent of its value. The re-release of Avatar didn’t make much of a dent in its box office, earning only $4 million in its 812 theaters for a twelfth-place finish. The film has now earned close to $754 million domestically.
Spot three for the frame was held by The Expendables, which in its third week grossed an estimated $9.5 million, dropping 44 percent since last weekend for a total cume of $82 million. Eat Pray Love earned $7 million for a total gross of $60 million. And slot five went to The Other Guys, which has stayed in the top five since opening a month ago. Losing only 37 percent of its value for an additional $6.6 million, the film is just on the cusp of $100 million with $99.3 million.
Twilight parody Vampires Suck took the sixth slot, losing over 55 percent of its value for a weekend take of $5.3 million and a total gross of $27.9 million. Inception landed in spot seven. The mind-bendy thriller, in its seventh weekend in release, grossed another $5.1 million for a total cume of $270 million. Nanny McPhee Returns grabbed eighth place with $4.7 million, a 44 percent drop-off. The British film written by and starring Emma Thompson has earned $17 million in two weeks of release. Ninth place went to the Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman-starrer The Switch which lost 45 percent of its value for $4.6 million. The romantic comedy has generated only $16.4 million since opening last weekend.
And spot ten went to Piranha 3-D, which grossed an estimated $4.3 million for a total two-week gross of $18.2 million. Check back next weekend when Going the Distance opens opposite Machete.
How can people actually support Vampires Suck? It is just sad. Sad I tell you.
I know. It already eclipsed (no pun intended) Scott Pilgrim by 1 million.
Scott Pilgrim drops +50%, Takers could be number 1, and Salt once again fall over 40%. Really, America?
Really. This is normal…
SALT has been out for what, six weeks? A 40 % decrease at this point is actually quite decent, and the film has not only grossed over 110 million domestic (so far, the biggest purely action film of the summer, not bad for a female-led movie in a genre that’s traditionally dominated by men)but it has already doubled its budget worldwide.
‘Salt’ did great biz, and shows that Jolie can carry a movie. She beat the ‘best supporting actress’ curse!
@tomm,m2, and Mark: Well, yes to all of you, but I wish people would see this underrated film. It was pure fun and I hope it continues to find an audience in theaters and DVD.
The total bomb-age of Scott Pilgrim has to be the story of the summer. It just seems unfathomable to me that a straight-to-video Matt Dillon movie like ‘Takers’ could pull in $20 million in one weekend while Scott Pilgrim struggled over several weeks to reach that. Seriously, almost any movie can make 20 million these days, and SP had a hellava lot of marketing muscle behind it. (NOTE: I am not a Scott Pilgrim fan, I haven’t seen it either… I just can’t figure the numbers)
Going The Distance vs. Machete vs. The American! They forgot to mention The American, cause thats what Im going to go see.
If The American is well-received, then it would be a shame because it wouldn’t win the weekend since it is opening Wednesday.
Takers was better than I thought it would be. I’ll see the Exorcism next weekend. Can’t have nightmares before the first day of school, which is tomorrow!
exorcist is the worst movie of the year. horrible. great premise…and down hill from there. when it was over people in our theater literally said “thats it”. a total waste of time and money
The trailers looked gross.
Funny about that – everyone hated the movie? Then why the 71% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes?
Hmmm interesting….
The movie had a really good premise and was sufficiently creepy most of the way. However the ending was just pure predictable trash and really ruined the movie for me.
Very close! Exorcism made $21.3 million to Takers $21 million! That’s very competitive. And good that T.I., had a stronger opening with Takers than his own ATL movie. And Chris Brown has gotten strong raves for his acting. And solid cast with Bill Bellamy,. I saw him as an emcee at an event in New Orleans July 31st and he showed a clip of the movie. He said July 20th, but they must have pushed it to the 27th. I think they smartly waited until the over the top ’80s-inspired Expendables cooled down because both have nearly the similar amounts of action, explosions and pyrotechics. You don’t want to have two of the same kinds of movies premiering on one weekend. So they split them 2 weeks apart.
And which part of the Takers PR department do you work for, Preston? The only good acting Chris Brown has gotten credit for is that “performance” he gave at the Michael Jackson tribute show. After what he did, people with decency will/did avoid anything with him in it.
What a sad, bitter person you are…
Why sad? Why bitter? He savagely beat up his girlfriend. Up until that point I was content to ignore him since I’m not part of his target audience, but after what he did, he became reprehensible to me. To make matters worse, I teach 7th and 8th grade and to see the response of the students when that happened was heartbreaking. Exact quotes: “It was her fault. She must have done something.” “He’s fine. He could beat me up anytime.” “I don’t care what he did. He’s cute.”
So am I sad and bitter? Yeah, I am. Sad that he still has 12-year-old fans who glorify him and bitter that he’s still allowed the benefits of celebrity.
Sadly, the best performance Brown has given is after that Grammy show, when he portrayed a wife-beating ogre, with stunningly realistic precision…
chris brown is so stupid. almost as stupid as rihanna
He is so lucky he is getting work at all considering he is only known now as a woman beater.
Still sad and bitter…..
Bill Bellamy is nowhere near this movie. Who are you confusing him with?
The real winner here was Lionsgate Films. Two back to back hits in “The Expendables” and “The Last Exorcism”. All of you who ar not sure what to see during the week or the weekend, go see, “The Expendables”. You’ll have a great time at the movies!
You wouldn’t happen to work for Lionsgate would you, Blue Silver?
They smartly marketed Takers several months in advance, leading to that 2nd place finish. But I’m surprised that Expendables has made $82 million in over 14-15 days! It’s still being watched. Takers really attracts the women with good looking people in TI, Bill Bellamy, Chris Brown, Matt Dillon and others. Expendable really attracts the men who want that bad boy retro ’80s action film, over the top mentality again in 2010! Sly-Arnold-Bruce in the same movie–what a triple threat!!!!
hey i didnt know bill behemy was in the move
bill Bellamy is not in the movie…you have written that several times and its disturbing that you are a teacher continuely making such a silly mistake…I think you are confusing Idris Elba for bellamy, and i truly hope that its not for the reason I think….if so you def need diversity training
What a sad, bitter person you are….
Considering that “Takers” had a budget of $20 million with at least one star that I’m sure gets part of the gross, and “Last Exorcism” had a budget of $1.8 million and no stars, I don’t think there really is much of a competition, is there?
The problem with audiences at TLE is that they thought they were going to get a gory, mindless horror film and instead got an intelligent, thought provoking film. No wonder EW doesn’t like it.
The ending was crap. That’s why people didn’t like it.
Good that ‘Takers” did good business. It shows that in reality America is more integrated, despite what negative Cable News people say.
Takers will “take” the B.O. after this weekend (pun intended). Did not see either Taken or Exorcism (have no desire to), but Exorcism was the only film in the top 20 to LOSE B.O. receipts on Saturday, which means that people who saw the film on Friday told their friends to skip it.
@Slimjimmy, I agree with your statement. After the Friday $9 million gross for The Last Exorcism I was sure that it would finish the weekend at around $30 million. I expect that Exorcism will suffer a bigger drop off than Takers next weekend.
Really. You think Last Exorcism will do badly because people didn’t dig the ending? I think people are waiting for better films to come down the pipe. That plus School is ready to resume.
Takers was terrible. It was a total mess of a film. I almost could not believe how awful the dialogue was throughout the movie. The characters were one-dimensional. The plot was just copied-and-pasted from better heist thrillers. And at times it generated laughs from everyone in the theater I was in, which wasn’t a good thing.
You sound like a damn FOOL! TAKERS WAS AWESOME! There was nothing one-dimensional about the charcters or the movie. Stop lying!
The American: $19.2 (George Clooney is still a box office force)
Going the Distance: $15.3 (September is a wasteland for rom-coms)
Machete: $18.7 (Good word-of-mouth will keep it alive)
The Town: $25.7 (Ditto and people seem to want to rid themselves of the dirty taste of “Takers”)
Resident Evil 4: $30.4 (It’s the only wide release opening that weekend)
Alpha and Omega: $10.7 (It doesn’t seem too impressive)
Devil: $23.2 (It’s actually a critically impressive year for horror films; could Devil continue this trend?)
Easy A: $18.9 (This decades Mean Girls in terms of reception?)
Wow, I agree with everything you say. I will be very impressed you completely nail all of these movies.
m1, I’m with you on all of them except “Going The Distance.” Yes, it’s a rom-com, but it has a lot of “guy humor” too. It’s a perfect date movie and that shouldn’t be underestimated on Labor Day weekend. I bet it finishes above the $20 million mark.