Weekend Wrap-Up for October 1-3, 2010

Network Rules Softly; Let Me In, Case 39 Bomb

By John Hamann

October 3, 2010

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Fourth spot goes to The Town, which surprisingly couldn't get past Wall Street 2. Now in its third weekend, The Town earned $10 million, and was off a larger than expected 36%. The Town has seen some stiff adult cinema competition since it opened, facing off against the open of Wall Street 2 in its second weekend, and The Social Network in its third. The Town is still going to do very well versus its $38 million production budget. It looks like the very well reviewed Ben Affleck flick is going to top out around $90 million. So far, The Town has earned an impressive $64.3 million.

Easy A, the Screen Gems teen-hit, falls to fifth this weekend. Made for only $8 million (10% of what it cost to make the Owl movie), Easy A is easily the biggest cost-to-profit hit of the fall season so far. After two weekends of grosses above its production budget, Easy A earned another $7 million this weekend for a drop of 34%. Easy A now has a domestic cume of $42.4 million and you can look for the Emma Stone flick to finish with about $60 million.

Sixth this weekend goes to Disney's You Again. In its second weekend, the family friendly Disney fare earned $5.5 million and dropped 34%. I find it depressing that the second weekend of this awfulness beats the opening of Let Me In . Give You Again a running total of $16.4 million. I figure I will be subject to repeated viewing as my punishment in hell. Thank you Disney.

Case 39 is seventh, and gets past the better reviewed and buzzed about Let Me In. The Renee Zellweger horror film that somehow avoided debuting on an airplane or a low-tier Korean cable channel was shot in 2006, and somehow fooled people out of $5.4 million (that money could have gone to charity, or could have given Armond White an education). May this Paramount Vantage production leave us quickly.




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Finally in eighth we have Overture's Let Me In, which didn't work, and will have to settle for an opening weekend of $5.3 million from 2,020 venues. It had an average of $2,622. As mentioned, Let Me In, much like The Social Network, had excellent reviews heading into the weekend, with 94 positive reviews out of a possible 110, good for a fresh rating of 85%. If it was good, why didn't anyone go see it this weekend? I think the first problem was that it was under-marketed, which could have been a result of Overture being brought in to the Relativity Media fold. As it turns out, Relativity Media is an investor in The Social Network, and is only involved with Let Me In due to the pick up of Overture Films. It seems to me that the child from the first marriage might have gotten more attention than the child from the second marriage. There was also less risk in the production of Let Me In compared to that of The Social Network. Let Me In cost less than half of what Network cost to produce, so Relativity worked the press more for The Social Network. Let Me In lived in the dark where the media seemed to be concerned, and this weekend's gross is the result. Why Relativity/Overture didn't platform this film out leaves me confused, as awareness could have been slowly built over a number of weekends. This result for Let Me In will likely lead to a domestic loss, where there never had to be one.

Ninth goes to M Night Shyamalan's 80 minute Devil, a film that never really caught on. Devil earned $3.6 million in its third frame, and dropped 44%. The Universal release has a domestic total of $27.4 million earned so far.

Finally in tenth is Alpha and Omega, the ugly-looking animated flick about wolves. The kiddie pic earned $3 million, and has a domestic running total of $19 million.

Overall, the box office is not only down from last weekend its also down from last year. A year ago, Zombieland was on top with $24.7 million, as it led the top 12 to $92 million. This year, the top 12 earned $87.5 million, off from the $90.7 million earned last weekend, and last year's totals. Next weekend looks pre-packaged: Warner Bros. has a rom-com with media darling Katherine Heigl called Life As We Know It (she will soon complain to the press that it's not life as she knows it). Also opening is a Disney sports movie called Secretariat, along with My Soul to Take from Wes Craven. And yes, it's in 3D. Huzzah! Hopefully, people will choose to see this weekend's openers next weekend.


Top Weekend Box Office for 10/1/10-10/3/10 (Actuals)
Rank Film Distributor Estimated Gross Actual Gross Weekly Change Running Total
1 The Social Network SONY $23,000,000 $22,445,653 New $22,445,653
2 Legend of the Guardians: the Owls of Ga'hoole WARNER BROS. $10,855,000 $10,887,429 New $30,079,298
3 Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Fox $10,100,000 $10,002,578 New $35,778,429
4 The Town Warner Bros. Pictures $10,000,000 $9,749,332 - 2.5% $64,056,752
5 Easy A SONY $7,000,000 $6,748,777 New $42,176,967
6 You Again Walt Disney Pictures $5,552,000 $5,722,566 + 3.1% $16,607,633
7 Case 39 Paramount $5,350,000 $5,350,570 0.0% $5,350,570
8 Let Me In Overture Films $5,300,000 $5,147,479 - 2.9% $5,147,479
9 Devil Universal $3,671,720 $3,564,055 - 2.9% $27,291,460
10 Alpha & Omega Lionsgate $3,000,000 $2,924,868 New $18,949,437
11 Resident Evil: Afterlife Screen Gems (Sony) $2,800,000 $2,784,775 - 0.5% $56,615,100
12 Inception Warner Bros. Pictures $870,000 $904,208 + 3.9% $288,405,376
  Also Opening/Notables
Click here for all weekend data
Box office data supplied by Exhibitor Relations
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