1. The Blind Side- $20.4M/$129M
Sandra Bullock's football drama sacked those pesky vampires this week after basically keeping pace with them last time around. While movies of this type have always been successful, The Blind Side is setting new standards, as it's now the highest grossing sports drama of all-time and the highest grossing football film period. Sorry, Necessary Roughness fans.
2. The Twilight Saga: New Moon- $15.7M/$256M
At this point, New Moon has far and away exceeded it's predecessor, even though it continues to decline at a rapid rate, dropping 63% from last week. On a side note: There are already posters up for next June's The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, which indicates to me that we aren't going to get even a moment's rest from this whole Twilight nonsense.
3. Brothers- $9.7M
Jim Sheridan's sibling rivalry drama packed a ton of star power and an intriguing premise, but failed to really connect with audiences. Then again, the post-Thanksgiving weekend is usually slow so perhaps it will maintain a strong hold over time.
4. A Christmas Carol- $7.52M/$115M
Disney's computer animated tale dropped only 52% on it's way to doing exactly as expected, strengthening it's hold from week to week leading into the Christmas holiday. Expect similar numbers next week.
5. Old Dogs- $6.9M/$33.9M
That's still too much.
6. Armored- $6.6M
I'm sure expectations were fairly low for this Columbus Short starring actioner, but I thought it would atleast beat out returning dreck like Old Dogs. This has to be consiered a disappointment on some level, not the least of which is the studio(Screen Gems) which has a multi-picture deal with the actor now. No longer is he gonna be able to tag along as the sidekick in top grossing films, he's got to actually carry them. Not a good start.
7. 2012- $6.6M/$149M
If there's gonna be a 2012 spinoff TV show, I'll only watch it if it involves Woody Harrelson's conspiracy theorist character. Everybody else can take a long walk off a short Ark as far as I'm concerned.
8. Ninja Assassin- $5.03M/$29.8M
All sizzle, no steak.
9. Planet 51- $4.3M/$34M
10. Everybody's Fine- $4.03M
Further illustrating my point that the days of the big movie star are over, the star laden Everybody's Fine couldn't even beat out month's old animated junk like Planet 51, and barely made the Top 10 at all. In it's defense, it only was at roughly 2100 sites, but even that shows the lack of faith the studio had in the material otherwise distribution would've been greater.
Also...
Jason Reitman's Juno follow-up, Up in the Air, flew circles around everybody with a whopping $1.2M at 15 sites! Expansion to follow.
Dorm Daze 3...urrrr, Transylmania set the record for the lowest opening weekend ever for a film opening at over 1,000 sites grossing only $274,000! Back to the DVD bin and late night Skinemax with you!
