Monday, October 12, 2009

Black Sheep @ The Box Office: The Sheep Retreats


I am in Montreal, visiting my family and friends for Thanksgiving, the Canadian one. Therefore, there will be no official box office report this week. Just a brief message to ask the filmgoers what is exactly wrong with them? Hollywood throws a bunch of oafish funny men and their pretty wives with whiny, pathetic problems into a tropical paradise so that they can complain about being there and you all run in droves to buy tickets to see COUPLES RETREAT. Bad moviegoers, bad. Meanwhile, last week's champ, ZOMBIELAND, which I hear is kick-ass, held up well, as did fellow Sony holdover, CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, which I did finally see this weekend and did not stop laughing practically the entire way. Even last week's disappointments, THE INVENTION OF LYING and WHIP IT and FAME have capitalized on decent word of mouth to manage nimimal declines. Michael Moore's CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY couldn't seem to capitalize on anything. If you haven't seen the TOY STORY double feature, do it soon, as it is only in theatres until Thursday and, having seen it yesterday, I can tell you it is a real nostalgic treat and has been restored to greatness. The big story of the week though in the Top 10 is clearly PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. This horror flick reportedly cost $11K to make and this week pulled a per screen average of four times that on just 160 screens and has now pulled in over $8 million. Below the Top 10, Chris Rock's documentary, GOOD HAIR and TIFF success, THE DAMNED UNITED, had solid but not groundbreaking starts. COCO AVANT CHANEL and A SERIOUS MAN pursued their successful expansions. And Oscar hopeful, AN EDUCATION took in an average of $40K per screen, schooling everyone else on how it's done.

NEXT WEEK: Cheap thrillers, THE STEPFATHER and LAW ABIDING CITIZEN open on 2700 screens each but the biggie and the one I cannot wait for is Spike Jonze's WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, getting wild on over 3500 screens.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Source: Box Office Mojo

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