1. The Possession - $9.5M - $33.3M total
2. Lawless - $6M - $23.5M
3. The Words - $5M - $5M
4. The Expendables 2 - $4.7M - $75.4M
5. The Bourne Legacy - $4M - $103.6M
6. ParaNorman - $3.8M - $45M
7. The Odd Life of Timothy Green - $3.6M - $43M
8. The Campaign - $3.5M - $79.4M
9. The Dark Knight Rises - $3.2M - $437.8M
10. 2016: Obama's America - $3.2M - $26M
(13. The Cold Light of Day - $1.8M - $1.8M)
A relatively quiet weekend with just two major releases, only one of which is out to a substantial number of screens. Hollywood is still stuck in the doldrums, though hopes are high box office-wise for next weekend's releases, the fifth Resident Evil film and the 3D re-release of Finding Nemo (which isn't arriving in the UK until March 2013!). But back to this week, and the very real chance that no single film would make $10M, something that hadn't happened since 2008 when Nic Cage's Bangkok Dangerous debuted at number one with just $7.7M.
The Possession was the comfortable victor last weekend, making $17.7M and recouping its production budget ($14M) by the end of its first three days. On its second Friday on general release The Possession added a further $2.8M, that's down 53% on its opening day. Things improved slightly over the remainder of the weekend, and the picture finished up on Sunday with $9.5M, down a very impressive (given its genre) 46% on last frame. At this point, day ten, the picture's cumulative gross stands at $33.3M putting it on track to finish its theatrical run with around $50-55M. With that $14M budget attached, The Possession should return Lionsgate a tidy profit when all is said and done but will be quickly forgotten by most within the month.
Despite strong reviews and a B+ Cinemascore, Lawless found itself settling for second place last weekend. Friday saw Lawless score $1.7M, putting the film down a not-bad 36% on the same day last week (and keeping new film, The Words at bay). Over the rest of the frame the Shia LaBeouf/Tom Hardy picture added a further $4.3M, giving it a weekend total of $6M ($23.5M overall). While budget details weren't available at the time of writing, this has to be on disappointing side for the Weinstein Company - more so given the talent involved. With at least six new releases over the next two weekends, Lawless won't get any breathing space and may end up not even breaking $40M in the US.
Our first new release this weekend is The Words, which was written and directed by Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal. It follows a young author (Rory) desperately trying to come up with a story. The film features Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Jeremy Irons and Dennis Quaid. The Words got off to a very soft Friday start of just $1.6M, not even good enough for second place and barely better than August's Hit & Run, in which Cooper had a co-starring role. Over Saturday and into Sunday, the picture continued to be given a wide berth, finishing up with a disappointing $5M weekend total. Word of mouth is unlikely to provide the flick with a weekday boost, and despite no direct competition next frame, The Words will almost certainly see a drop of above 50%. The only saving grace is the film's low production budget, rumoured to be around $6M, which it will recoup in the next few days.
Now in its fourth weekend, The Expendables 2 managed $1.3M Friday haul, with a further $3.4M over Saturday and Sunday. Its 24 day total now stands at $75.4M, meaning it should clear $85M in North America but see little more. As expected, better news came from the overseas market where the Stallone-led ensemble cleared $100M as of last Wedneday. The original picture made $171M abroad and there's little reason to think this new film won't make at least that figure, with $200M not entirely out of the question.
The Bourne Legacy is starting to look a little long in the tooth now, but did at least cross the $100M mark on Friday. With an additional $4M this weekend, the Bourne-less spin off now has a five week total of $103.6M, with a further $61M from its foreign release (as of Thursday). At this point, Universal has still not committed itself to a further Jeremy Renner led picture, and may wait to see how the film's home release goes before making a decision.
Sadly ParaNorman doesn't appear to have the staying power of Coraline, despite its current chart position. This weekend the supernatural themed family flick made $3.8M, to bring its four week total to $45M. Next frame the Finding Nemo 3D re-release will almost certainly finish it off.
The Odd Life of Timothy Green recouped its $40M production budget on Friday. This frame, its fourth on general release saw the Disney fantasy picture add $3.6M, bringing its overall total to $43M. Meanwhile The Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis political comedy, The Campaign, notched up another $3.5M this weekend to bring its running total to $79.4M. It won't finish up near Step Brothers $100M but should surpass Anchorman ($85M back in 2004).
Last weekend The Dark Knight Rises crossed $1 billion in total global ticket sales - only twelve other films have achieved such a feat. Furthermore, it has now cleared $100M just in Imax ticket sales, the only other picture to do that was Avatar. Curiously, while The Dark Knight was stronger in North America than overseas ($533M against $469M), its sequel is reversed ($437M against $577M). The stronger overseas figure means TDKR actually sits higher than The Dark Knight on the all-time worldwide chart. Over the weekend, Christopher Nolan's final Batman film made $3.2M, bringing its total to $437M.
While the political documentary 2016: Obama's America climbed up to third during the week, it was once again back at the lower end of the chart by the weekend. With $3.2M over the last three days, 2016 has now made $26M in its 59 days on release.
The only other new wide release this frame is action thriller, The Cold Light of Day, starring Henry Cavill, Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver. Cavill plays Will Shaw, a man who finds his family kidnapped by intelligence agents while holidaying in Spain. With a screen count of around 1,500, it appears Summit wasn't too confident about the film's potential performance - something that was quickly proved correct. The Cold Light of Day struggled to $637K on Friday, not even cracking the top ten and by the end of the weekend it had made just $1.8M. Chances are the film will be pulled from the vast majority of its locations by next Friday and be just a footnote on the stars' respective CVs.
Finally, one further film of note. The one week Imax release of Raiders of the Lost Ark made $438K on Friday, heading to a weekend finish of $1.72M. A very strong showing from only 267 locations.
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