Michael Douglas and Oliver Stone topped the box office chart this week with a sequel to a film that is more than two decades old. I have not yet seen the movie, but I have to think that for better or worse Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps may be the timeliest movie of the year. This is not to say that it is needed movie or that it does or does not have something to say about the current state of affairs. Just think about it, the original Wall Street arrived at the right time and put a real world scenario in the big screen and now Oliver Stone gets to follow it up through the eyes of a familiar character. I hope to catch up with this soon.Coming in second place is the film I had pegged to win the weekend, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. This one I did see and while do not think it was a great film, it has a lot of things to like about it. The action is executed splendidly and the animation is downright gorgeous, on top of that the story is easily accessible and goes in some darker than expected directions. Despite what I liked about it, the story did drag the chunks of the middle and did not get as deep as I would have liked. Still, this is something worth checking out on the big screen.
There was one other new film to reach the top ten, You Again. It is another one I have not yet seen but I hope to rectify that soon. To be certain, I am not expecting much from it, but I do like the cast and they look like they had a good time making it and sometimes all I want is a little something that I don't need to think much about. I think this may fill the bill.
As for the rest of the list, most titles held pretty well since last week. The only notable slot would be tenth where Inception landed. The Christopher Nolan offering has lasted eleven weeks on the charts, easily the longest run of any film this year. It may not have made as much as his last film, but it is still doing quite well and is quite the achievement.
Next weekend will see Let Me In arrive nationwide, the film is a remake of the fantastic Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In. Joining it will be the thriller Case 39, starring Renee Zellweger, and The Social Network, the Facebook movie from director David Fincher.
Two movies dropped off the list this week: The Other Guys (11), The American (12), and Machete (14).
| This Week | Last Week | Title | Wknd Gross | Overall | Week in release |
| 1 | N | Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps | $19,000,000 | $19,000,000 | 1 |
| 2 | N | Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole | $16,335,000 | $16,335,000 | 1 |
| 3 | 1 | The Town | $16,030,000 | $49,117,000 | 2 |
| 4 | 2 | Easy A | $10,700,000 | $32,814,000 | 2 |
| 5 | N | You Again | $8,300,000 | $8,300,000 | 1 |
| 6 | 3 | Devil | $6,479,000 | $21,733,000 | 2 |
| 7 | 4 | Resident Evil: Afterlife | $4,900,000 | $52,019,000 | 3 |
| 8 | 5 | Alpha and Omega | $4,700,000 | $15,130,000 | 2 |
| 9 | 6 | Takers | $1,650,000 | $54,913,000 | 5 |
| 10 | 9 | Inception | $1,245,000 | $287,051,000 | 11 |
Box Office Predictions Recap
Well, at least I got two positions right. This weekend was not a particularly god one for me. I know I haven't been writing many of these up over the past few weeks, so I am sure you are glad to see my time away hasn't improved my ability to guess movie popularity. Still, I soldier on in the hopes that one day I will be able to get a handle on how this ticks. I am not surprised by a few of the places, most notably the top two. As for the bombing of The Virginity Hit, I should have known better than to give it as much as I did. I mean, the movie has had little promotion and is not in all that many theaters.
Here is how the field matched up:
| Actual | Prediction | Title | Wknd Gross | Prediction |
| 2 | 1 | The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole | $16,335,000 | $24 million |
| 1 | 2 | Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps | $19,000,000 | $21 million |
| 3 | 3 | The Town | $16,030,000 | $16 million |
| 5 | 4 | You Again | $8,300,000 | $13 million |
| 4 | 5 | Easy A | $10,700,000 | $9.5 million |
| 6 | 6 | Devil | $6,479,000 | $6 million |
| 22 | 7 | The Virginity Hit | $300,000 | $4 million |
| 8 | 8 | Alpha & Omega | $4,700,000 | $2.5 million |
| 7 | 9 | Resident Evil: Afterlife | $4,900,000 | $2 million |
| 9 | 10 | Takers | $1,650,000 | $1 million |
Article first published as Box Office Update 9/24-9/26: Wall Street Sequel Climbs to the Top on Blogcritics.
0 comments:
Post a Comment