The Town Wicked Wins the Weekend, Kid, and Other Box Office News

 
Let the call of the townie ring out in glorious fashion, for now the world over knows of the great people of Charlestown. Yes, Ben Affleck's hometown heist movie, The Town, won the box office this weekend, raking in an estimated $23.8 million. Just because I'm a giant numbers whore, that's more than four times what Affleck's debut directorial effort, Gone Baby Gone, made on its opening weekend. And since the advertising loves to mention that this movie comes from the same "studio that brought you The Departed," it's also worth noting that this is just a couple million shy of what that Boston crime flick made when it first hit.
 
Second place went to the Emma Stone teen sex comedy Easy A, which Rorie loved the crap out of. Its estimated $18.2 million take (for a movie that cost around $8 million to make) bodes well for Emma Stone's future career. Behind that came the first of M. Night Shyamalan's "Night Chronicles," Devil, which did about $12.6 million--also good enough to beat its modest budget of about $10 million. So, once again, another not-so-great project with the name Shyamalan stamped all over it has become a financial success, thus guaranteeing us more such crap. Sigh.
 
Though we didn't get around to reviewing it this weekend (I was too busy watching Uwe Boll movies on Netflix), I read enough other reviews around the web to know that Alpha and Omega coming in fifth with a mere $9.2 million isn't an altogether terrible thing. That movie looked just awful.
 
Elsewhere, Resident Evil: Afterlife took a huge tumble in its second week. Its drop from 1st to 4th was less significant than its 62% total drop in dollar total. Guess people figured out that movie was pretty crappy. Machete also took about 60% fall, which sorta blows, but at least it beat out Eat Pray Love (which has, finally, dropped off the list). 
 
On the indie front, Catfish and Never Let Me Go both had solid openings on just a handful of screens (with both averaging over $25,000 per screen), and though I can't find the original story I saw that reported it, I'm Still Here, which went into wider release this weekend, apparently tanked pretty hard, making something like less than $1,000 per screen (if someone can find that link, I'll cite it here). I guess maybe revealing that your movie was all a hoax right before it went into wide release wasn't quite fortuitous timing?
 
Hey dude guy, what say you go down and click that link to see the full list there? Then we can head out to Gloucester and get some scallops! Wicked awesome, kid!
 

Box Office Results: 09/17 - 09/19

	1. The Town $23.8 million / NEW It pleases me to no end to see this one take the weekend, and to see Ben Affleck's directorial efforts rewarded. I stand by my statement that this is easily one of the best heist flicks of the last few years. I just hope its overall take trumps Takers. Seeing that slick piece of shit do better than The Town would just kill me in my soul region.
	2. Easy A $18.2 million / NEW Rorie was right, there are almost no reviews out there for this movie that don't cite this movie as a kind of star-making performance for Emma Stone. I'm all in favor of her appearing in more stuff. Ever since her insanely spot-on Annie Potts impersonation in Zombieland, I've known this girl was something special.
	3. Devil $12.6 million / NEW I could sit here and get angry about this movie doing well, but the truth is it's just not worth it. It's just another mediocre supernatural horror thriller to throw on the old burning garbage pile. I still swear that this thing would have gone straight to video if it didn't have M. Night's stink all over it. I mean, typically, when Bokeem Woodbine is the biggest star in your movie, you don't do this well at the box office..
	4. Resident Evil: Afterlife $10.1 million / $44 million Hey, guys, maybe we shouldn't be quite so hasty about announcing new sequels just yet, ya think?
	5. Alpha and Omega $9.2 million / NEW I still can't believe this is Dennis Hopper's last movie.
	6. Takers $3 million / $52.3 million Guys? Stop it. Seriously. Just stop.
	7. The American $2.8 million / $32.9 million I'm amazed this movie is still hanging on as well as it is, given the audience perception it's garnered thus far. I think I may go see it in theaters soon, just to do my part for all the taut, slow-burning character studies that might suffer due to this film's middling money-making.
	8. Inception $2.015 million / $285.1 million Hey, Inception? I'm totally done trying to figure you out. Last week you're in 10th place, and now, after dropping a mere 20% this week, you're back in 8th? STOP SCREWING WITH MY HEAD!!!
	9. The Other Guys $2 million / $115.4 million Probably the last we'll see of this movie on this list, but it had a heck of a good run.
	10. Machete $1.7 million / $24.3 million It's basically made its moderate budget back, and I imagine will do OK overseas, but yeah, this still has to be a bit of a disappointment overall for Rodriguez and crew. No movie featuring Cheech Marin getting crucified should do this poorly.

 
Dropped Out: Eat Pray Love, The Expendables, Going the Distance, The Last Exorcism
 
Source: Box Office Mojo