The last weekend of August was crowded with rappers, exorcisms, and senior citizens.
The Last Exorcism made a startling debut at the box office, bringing in an impressive $21.3 Million in just three days on a budget of merely $1.8 Million. Â That amount of profit essentially guarantees a sequel to be greenlit any day now. Â The opening is similar to last year’s Paranormal Activity, which had a budget of only $15,000. Â Maybe Hollywood has finally learned that quality scares, minus that CGI nonsense, shouldn’t cost millions of dollars to produce and will still generate solid revenue.
This weekend’s other big release, Takers, brought in a very surprising $20 Million, losing to Exorcism by an incredibly small margin. Â The movie had a large ensemble cast, which seems to have paid off for the action-packed heist movie.
Avatar, on Imax and in 3D, made a return to theaters this weekend with an estimated nine minutes of additional footage. Â Unfortunately for James Cameron, audiences didn’t return to theaters to see it. Â The movie played on over 800 theaters and brought in only $4 Million. Â While that amount is solid considering the number of theaters, it wasn’t good enough to make the top ten. Â Estimates had put the movie at roughly $15 Million prior to Friday, making the re-release quite a disappointment.
The Expendables fell only 44%, surprisingly, and managed a very impressive 3rd place finish among the charts. Â After this weekend’s haul, the movie has made $82 Million, overtaking its initial budget and churning a profit. Â Piranha 3D took a massive nose dive, plummeting down to 10th place and bringing its total to just $18 Million, $2 Million shy of its $20 Million budget.
The biggest news of the weekend was Toy Story 3, which managed to bring in only $1 Million over the last three days, which was good enough for a 19th place finish among the box office charts. Â What’s really impressive about that figure is the fact that its gross this weekend was just enough to push the movie to $1 Billion worldwide, making it the first animated movie to ever do so. Â Quite an impressive feat, Pixar. Â Quite impressive.
Weekend Box Office – Top 10
The Last Exorcism – $21.3 Million
Takers – $20 Million
The Expendables – $9.5 Million
Eat Pray Love – $7 Million
The Other Guys – $6.6 Million
Vampires Suck – $5.3 Million
Inception - $5.1 Million
Nanny McPhee Returns – $4.7 Million
The Switch – $4.6 Million
Piranha 3D – $4.3 Million
Article written by Matt Wehner on GotchaMovies.com. Reposted with permission.
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