'The Town' Tops Friday Box-Office Followed by 'Devil' and 'Easy A'
'Inception' may have one last week in the top ten
Ben Affleck's The Town will be taking the weekend #1 spot after an $8.3 million Friday and what should be a $24 million weekend. Surprising, perhaps to me only, this will already top Affleck's excellent 2007 feature Gone Baby Gone, which only made $20 million overall. The Town was made on a budget of $34 million, which means this one will likely walk away from theaters with a profit making DVD and Blu-ray sales gravy. However, I wonder what word of mouth will be on this flick. I didn't mind it (my review), but I didn't think it brought anything new to the picture other than a pretty good car chase scene. Any of you see it and care to share your thoughts?
In second is Columbia's Easy A serving as Emma Stone's coming out party. The film managed $6.8 million on Friday and will likely finish close to $20 million for the weekend. Considering we're talking about a film reportedly made on a $8 million budget that number is looking pretty sweet. Will Stone be able to transition into a new Hollywood "go to" actress? I never had a chance to see Easy A so I can't speak to its quality, but I did recently watch The House Bunny for a second time and Stone is quality in that flick.
In third is the M Night Shyamalan written and produced thriller Devil directed by the Dowdle brothers and carrying with it the hatred of the online masses simply due to Shyamalan's involvement. I didn't get to see this one either, but it didn't look all that bad and a few people were willing to give it a shot as it took in $4.9 million on Friday and will likely finish somewhere around $14 million for the weekend. Made on a $10 million production budget this one will likely break even at the box-office if it has any kind of legs whatsoever. Next in the "Night Chronicles" series is Reincarnate directed by Daniel Stamm, which centers on a jury haunted by supernatural forces that hold the key to the case of an accused murderer. Hmmmm… that sounds a bit… dumb, but then again running into the devil in a business elevator doesn't sound too high concept either.
The week's last new release is Lionsgate's animated Alpha and Omega which managed $2.6 million at the box-office and will struggle to land $8-9 million for the weekend, and that is assuming it's able to do a bit better with families over Saturday and Sunday. I'm actually heading out in about an hour to see Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, which will likely dwarf Alpha and Omega's number next weekend.
I've added the complete Friday top ten directly below and it looks like Inception may be able to make it ten straight weeks in the top ten before it is surely out of the top ten next week. I will be filling in for Laremy tomorrow morning with the complete weekend wrap-up.
- The Town – $8.3 million
- Easy A – $6.8 million
- Devil – $4.9 million
- Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D – $3 million
- Alpha and Omega – $2.6 million
- Takers – $930,000
- The American – $835,000
- The Other Guys – $585,000
- Eat Pray Love – $520,000
- Inception – $500,000
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Yay! The two best reviewed films of the weekend made the top three! YEAH!!! And when will Alice in Dreamland drop out of the ten?
What do you mean by that?
Alice is ahead of Inception by about $300 million worldwide.
Alice in Dreamland is a nickname for Inception.
m1 just hates Inception.
Say what you will about the film or it's subject, but for an original movie to open with 60 million dollars and eventually close in on 300 million domestic in an era where 40, 50, or even 60 percent drop-offs are considered the norm, you have to admire if not flat-out respect it's hold-overs to some degree.
@Colin: I actually thought it was decent, but DOES NOT deserve a Best Picture win or even the nod. Inception is to Alice what Avatar was to Pocahontas.
m1-I enjoyed it thoroughly given all of it's flaws. But explain to me the Alice in Wonderland reference. I can see that comparison with something like The Matrix but I don't quite see it for Inception.
@Colin:
DiCaprio-The Mad Hatter
Gordon-Levitt -The March Hare
Page-Alice
Cotillard-The Red Queen
Hardy and Watanabe-Tweedledum and Tweedledee
The Dreams-WONDERLAND
The movie is visually reminiscent of Alice.
Sleepiness is the 'rabbit hole'.
The totem indicates whether you're in the 'rabbit hole'.
The movie switches between visually splendid to dark and mysterious.
Dildeep Rao's character resembled the Cheshire Cat.
These comparisons are for the original animated version, not the disappointing remake.
I can kind of see that, but then again you could invite those comparisons to numerous other films. Personally, I saw the film as more of a metaphor for the videogame culture than anything else.
I think word-of-mouth on The Town is likely to be great. I haven't seen it, but from all reviews it seems like while it doesn't bring anything new to the table, it's just a very solid R-rated crowd-pleaser appealing to both young and adult demographics. I look at the premise, then I get an overall picture of the whole film from the reviews and I don't know for what reason many people wouldn't like the movie.
"to both young [demographics]…"
And I suppose by this you mean that teens will try to sneak in?
By young demographic I mean aged 18-25.
@Nick: Oh. But I still wouldn't be surprised if teens decided to sneak in.
I think Emma Stone is probably in a good position to become a "go to" actress – hasn't she been cast as the lead role in the adaptation of The Help, which was a really popular book?
At first when people wrote about Devil, they seemed to imply that the creature was "a" devil, meaning a demon of which there are many. But lately, everyone seems to be writing that it is "The" Devil. I wonder which one it is.
Brad are you going to post your thoughts after you watch Legend of the Guardians.Plz let me know .
The Town seems to be getting excellent critical reviews and also great public word of mouth.
That should give it some legs and stability over the coming weeks, especially with the affordable budget. Older adults especially will appreciate this film I think going by the word I've seen so far, and they have been starved of something with even a sniff of quality for a while now.
Devil will at least end up in profit once international is factored into the equations given it's low budget and the same applies really to Easy A which I read was made for only $9 million.
Basically, all the new releases may never have huge grosses but will not be failures once all reciepts are in.
That said, the premise of Devil sounds dumb enough to be divertingly stupid for it's run time if it's done decently and the trailer was ok for it.
The Town I will hopefully see next weekend when it opens here.
And the premise to Reincarnate actually sounds intriguing.
Don't care about any of Shyamalan's work anymore. I won't even notice Devil or Reincarnate.
Stone was great in Paper Man. If you'll watch that piece of crap movie for any reason, its because of her. She's golden. I hope she makes it in Hollywood, because she makes everything better.
"Will Stone be able to transition into a new Hollywood "go to" actress?"…
She already seems to be there. This movie has a good enough concept to be sold without any stars. And Emma was able to be cast even though, in my opinion, she does not look like a high school student at all. Friends With Benefits is also a good enough concept to sell itself, and she is in that as well.
I don't quite have enough interest to track down her support group, but something besides talent is helping this girls career. Not only is she continually in movies with industry heavyweights, she got a voice part for Marmaduke, the kind of gig you can only get through connections.
Though my prediction numbers were kinda off. This seems to be on par with the way these films were tracking. Except The Town is out running it's tracking and to be honest when I saw it this weekend I thought I may have to amend my prediction by the looks of the sizable crowd.
As far as what I thought of the film itself. It was very well made and incredibly familiar plot wise. I knew how it would end a half hour in but it was still a fun ride.
I thought Town was excellent. It deserves all the praise it's getting. Affleck is definitely a director to watch out for from now on (I guess he was since he made the excellent Gone Baby Gone). Town was easily one of the best crime/heist movies to have come out in recent years. The cast and direction made it better than an average crime movie, which normally skew more towards a specific demographic. This one almost perfectly balances its appeal to adults and the younger audience, who I'm sure will get a taste of it on dvd/blu ray if not the theater.