The George Clooney-starring assassin thriller The American topped the Labor Day weekend box office with an estimated $12.9 million. Last week’s winner, the crime thriller Takers, which dropped 44%, still finished a strong second with an estimated $11.4 million. Robert Rodriguez’s over-the-top grindhouse hymn to Mexploitation films, Machete, won the Friday box office, but lost momentum and finished third.
With students headed back to school and the start of football season, traditionally Labor Day is one of Tinseltown’s weakest holiday frames. Overall the box office take for this year’s Labor Day weekend was anemic with the top ten films grossing just $75.3 million, which was down 2% from the last year.
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Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): September 3 - 5, 2010 | ||||||
|
|
Film |
Weekend Gross |
Screens |
Avg./ Screen |
Total Gross |
Wk# |
|
1 |
The American |
$12,968,000 |
2,823 |
$4,594 |
$16,114,000 |
1 |
|
2 |
Takers |
$11,450,000 |
2,206 |
$5,190 |
$37,900,000 |
2 |
|
3 |
Machete |
$11,300,000 |
2,670 |
$4,232 |
$11,300,000 |
1 |
|
4 |
The Last Exorcism |
$7,645,000 |
2,874 |
$2,660 |
$32,477,000 |
2 |
|
5 |
Going the Distance |
$6,885,000 |
3,030 |
$2,272 |
$6,885,000 |
1 |
|
6 |
The Expendables |
$6,592,000 |
3,398 |
$1,940 |
$92,159,000 |
4 |
|
7 |
The Other Guys |
$5,400,000 |
2,607 |
$2,071 |
$106,866,000 |
5 |
|
8 |
Eat Pray Love |
$4,850,000 |
2,663 |
$1,821 |
$68,954,000 |
4 |
|
9 |
Inception |
$4,530,000 |
1,704 |
$2,658 |
$277,103,000 |
8 |
|
10 |
Nanny McPhee Returns |
$3,575,000 |
2,708 |
$1,320 |
$22,441,000 |
3 |
The American drew an older, more mature audience, the movie-savvy crowd that Hollywood will be attempting to appeal to during the fall season as the studios unspool their adult-oriented “award” movies along with healthy helpings of genre films (horror movies in October) and holiday movies (over Thanksgiving & Christmas). Machete had the most buzz of the three films opening this weekend, but dropped 3.8% from Friday to Saturday night, while the more date-friendly The American gained 28% over the same time period.
As ICv2 predicted, last weekend’s apparent winner (whose box office crown was taken away on Monday after the final figures were released) The Last Exorcism suffered a major drop (63%) as it tumbled to fourth place.
Audiences apparently rejected the R-rated romantic comedy Going the Distance, which stars Drew Barrymore and the “Apple Guy” Justin Long. TV ads and talk show appearances couldn’t scare up an audience for the long distance romance flick, and its poor debut certainly didn’t do any favors for the future of R-rated romcoms with analysts already talking about how the film’s rating kept an important audience segment (teenagers) away.
The long term holdovers, The Expendables (down 30.8% in its fourth weekend), The Other Guys (-14.1% in its fifth), Eat Pray Love (off 28.8% in its fourth), and Inception (down just 7% in its eighth) continued to do well. Toy Story 3, the top movie of the summer, added nearly $2 million while bringing its seasonal best total to $408 million.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World dropped to #18 in its fourth weekend of release, but added $1.5 million, which brought its total to near $30 million—a disappointment, but not an abject failure—and a major success in terms of the number of graphic novels sold trailing only the Twilight movies in that category in 2010.