With zero wide release competition in its way, it was obvious Resident Evil: Afterlife would take the top spot at the box office. But not only did Afterlife easily secure the #1 position, it also brought the Resident Evil franchise its biggest opening ever. The opening weekend haul has improved from film to film, the first taking in $17.7 million, Apocalypse earning $23 million, Extinction with $23.7 million and now Afterlife with $27.7 million. Milla Jovovich is likely a very happy lady because not only is this a franchise high, but a personal opening weekend best, too. Afterlife easily surpassed its $60 million budget earning $73.2 million worldwide.
Screen Gems went two for two this weekend not only taking the top spot with Afterlife, but the second as well with Takers. Takers pulled in an additional $6.1 million in its third weekend, bringing its domestic total to $48.1 million. Right behind Takers is The American with $5.9 million and Machete, which plummeted 63.2% in its second week, earning just $4.2 million.
Coming in at #5 with $3.8 million is Going the Distance, which now has a total of $14 million in the bank, leaving it a long ways off from earning back its $32 million production budget. The Other Guys continues to hold strong in week six, dropping just 31.9% and pocketing another $3.6 million. The Last Exorcism is trying to stretch its run as well, although not quite as successfully. It dropped 53% in week three, adding $3.5 million to its pot, bringing its domestic total to $38.2, which is fantastic considering its measly $1.8 million budget.
The Expendables finds itself in the eighth position in its fifth week with $3.3 million followed closely by Inception in its ninth week with $3 million. Rounding out the top ten is Eat Pray Love, which earned $2.9 million.
The upcoming weekend will certainly be a different story. Rather than just one wide release going for the dough, we’ll have four brand new ones vying for that top spot. We’ve got Lionsgate’s animated film Alpha and Omega, M. Night Shyamalan’s horror flick Devil, the Emma Stone comedy Easy A and Ben Affleck’s The Town. There’s a nice split in terms of target audiences, so it’s particularly difficult to judge the outcome of this battle. Of the four, I’ll guess Alpha and Omega performs the weakest due to lack of promotion, The Town will take the third spot, Devil the second and Easy A will come out on top. I’ve really got little to go on concerning the top three except for the fact that Easy A is opening in more theaters than the other two. Also, perhaps the fact that few turned out for more recent comedies – Going the Distance and The Switch – moviegoers may be craving something within the genre. Between The Town and Devil, I side with Devil simply because the horror hounds always come out to give something of that nature a nice midnight boost.
And of course we can’t forget out limited releases. There’s the much buzzed about Catfish hitting 12 theaters, the Philip Seymour Hoffman-directed Jack Goes Boating in four and the Wednesday release, Never Let Me Go making its way into four theaters courtesy of Fox Searchlight.
By Perri Nemiroff (via Box Office Mojo)
