Black Sheep @ The Box Office

This is it, folks.  This is the last box office report for the summer of 2010.  Next week, Black Sheep will take a look at the summer as a whole, picking both the biggest winners and saddest losers.  Knowing how this summer performed though, I would say we're in for a bigger share of disappointment than success.

I think I just learnt this posture in yoga. I think it's called "Arching the Demon".

That said, this last weekend in August performed better than expected overall.  THE LAST EXORCISM and TAKERS both pulled in more than $21 million when neither was expected to come near $20 million to begin with.  With only $300K difference between them, THE LAST EXORCISM is a very tentative winner and final figures could see TAKERS, uh, take the top spot away.  The next three titles, THE EXPENDABLES, EAT PRAY LOVE and THE OTHER GUYS can all celebrate for each pulling in grand totals matching roughly what their estimated budgets were reported as ($80 million, $60 million and $100 million, respectively).  Meanwhile, the film with the slightest drop over last week is INCEPTION, which actually climbs back up two spots this week.  Below the Top 10, French import, MESRINE: KILLER INSTINCT opened to an adequate $5.4K average and $150K total and Robert Duvall's black comedy, GET LOW, continued its successful expansion, pulling in another $1.7 million this week for a $3.7 million total.  Finally, James Cameron's AVATAR: SPECIAL EDITION had to settle for 12th place this weekend, pulling in just $4 million on a little over 800 screens.  It isn't that shocking that the biggest film of all time missed the Top 10 in its first reissue considering there was a surprisingly sparse campaign behind it.  The extra cash has allowed it to surpass the $750 million mark domestically.

When are groups of guys on rooftops ever up to any good?

NEXT WEEK: George Clooney goes international on Wednesday in THE AMERICAN on over 2700 screens.  Drew Barrymore and Justin Long try the New York/L.A. thing in GOING THE DISTANCE on more than 2900 screens on Friday.  Also on Friday, Lindsay Lohan returns to the screen as a gun-toting nun in Robert Rodriguez's B-movie revival, MACHETE (2500 screens).

Source: Box Office Mojo