Welcome back to the dumpster. September continues to be flooded with peculiar product leading to less than desirable box office grosses. Last week's number one The Possession easily won the weekend with $9 million in its second week of release. The Sam Raimi produced scare-fest held well enough thanks in large part to good word of mouth and lack of any real competition. Lawless remained in the number two spot again this week. The crime drama hasn't exactly been lighting up the box office in spite of decent reviews and a strong cast of well respected actors including Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman and Shia Lebeouf. Wait a second. How did Shia Lebeouf make it onto that list? Let me try that again... In spite of decent reviews and a strong cast of well respected actors and Shia Lebeouf. There. That felt more intellectually honest.
CBS Films' festival pickup The Words was heavily marketed on an all star cast including Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis and Zoe Saldana. The literary themed drama could only muster $5 million in ticket sales in its first weekend. Analysts are beginning to speculate what kind of draw Bradley Cooper is outside of The Hangover films. His presence in The Words and Hit and Run seems to show in low budget fare he's all but ignored by audiences. Still, The Words was a low cost acquisition. And CBS films is known for getting blood from a rock.
The Expendables 2 is still hanging around the top five with another $4.8 million in tickets sold, just passing the $75 million mark in North America. Meanwhile, ParaNorman continues to scrape up the family dollars thanks to a void in the marketplace making $4.3 million for a grand total of $45 million.
And our 'Dumpster Film of the Week' is the Henry Cavill-starring dud The Cold Light of Day, which was surreptitiously dumped into 1500+ screens and couldn't even crack the top ten. In it's first week of release the film could barely generate $2 million in ticket sales and was almost beaten by a 245 screen re-release of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Welcome to the dumpster, Mr. Cavill. I have higher hopes for Man of Steel.
Next week the dumpster gets filled with the fifth Resident Evil film, subtitled Retribution. Which seems fitting since after paying money to see four Resident Evil movies retribution against the producers is something I'm interested in seeing happen. And the first real Oscar contender hits theaters with Paul Thomas Anderson's latest gem, The Master.
Here's your top films for North America...
1. The Possession
Weekend Estimate: $9 million; $33 million total
2. Lawless
Weekend Estimate: $5.8 million; $23 million total
3. The Words
Weekend Estimate: $5 million
4. The Expendables 2
Weekend Estimate: $4.8 million; $75 million total
5. ParaNorman
Weekend Estimate: $4.3 million; $45 million total
Anghus Houvouras
