Ben Affleck rules the box office, as The Town holds off Easy A and Devil to take the top spot. Here's our US box office round-up...
Hey, remember when Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were the two hottest young stars in Hollywood? They'd just won the Oscar for Good Will Hunting and were on top of the world? Then Reindeer Games happened, and Jennifer Lopez, and one of the biggest bombs in box office history and people forgot that Ben Affleck isn't as terrible as everyone thinks. He's just got some of the crappiest representation in Hollywood and keeps stumbling into terrible films.
Well, say what you want to about Bfleck, but I don't hate him and, apparently, people are willing to forgive him his past trespasses.
Affleck's Boston-centric crime thriller The Town took the top spot at the box office this weekend. The flick bowed nationwide on Friday and took in $23.8 million. The trailers at the theaters looked pretty average, but the TV spots were great, and that's probably what propelled the movie into such successful territory. The Town had no trouble besting the weekend's other new releases, though all four of them landed in top five territory.
Trailing The Town was Easy A, a teen comedy starring the lovely and talented Emma Stone as a girl who pretends to sleep with men to boost their social reputation for money. Weird premise, I know, but apparently it spoke to audiences to the tune of $18.2 million stateside, with little promotion, at that.
Devil, written by the most incredible success story ever to nearly ruin himself in the person of M. Night Shyamalan, slots neatly into third place at the box office. The flick took in 12.58 million bucks over the weekend, but since Universal is playing its financial cards close to its vest, I'm not sure if that's good or bad. It's certainly better than I expected, which is weird considering that I expected a slightly better showing for fifth place Alpha And Omega, which managed $9.2 million over the weekend. I had them transposed, I guess.
Slotting between the two was last week's number one film, Resident Evil: Afterlife ($10.1 million).
Takers falls hard, from second last week to sixth this week, with $3 million. I imagine its audience was taken by The Town, since they're both crime thrillers (in spite of Takers' younger cast and more urban appeal). The flick has grossed $52 million thus far, which is great for a movie of this ilk.
The American drops to seventh place this weekend, picking up $2.75 million stateside. It's looking to be a bit of a disappointment, but when you factor in that the movie is actually really good, then that kind of makes a difference in terms of reception. It's probably a little slow for most audiences, but it's definitely worth checking out if you ask me.
Rising two spots from last week, Inception is one of those rare flicks that has managed to claw its way back onto the charts, despite the constant trickle of screens from its total. The movie grossed $2.015 million over the weekend, which is the smallest drop of any film in the top 10. Apparently, the other movies just kind of shifted around it, as The Other Guys (ninth place, $2 million) and Machete (tenth place, $1.7 million) both sank below a film they were beating pretty handily last weekend.
So, what's on tap for the last weekend in September? Well, there's your 3D extravaganza in the form of The Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Ga'Hoole, your teenage sex comedy in the form of The Virginity Hit (the latest in the sub-American Pie genre), your comedy for women of all ages and the latest high point in the Betty White renaissance in the form of You Again, and your ‘why in the hell did they make this?' film of the month in the form of Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps (because Shia LaBeouf just needed to be in another sequel to something nobody needed to mess with).
Looks like a real crap sandwich to me.