Weekend Box Office Report: September 12 to 14: The Coens Burn ‘Em All!

Weekend Top 10

So I didn’t bother with the box office report last
weekend.  It’s not like anyone
bothered going to the movies last weekend either so no big deal.  With four major wide releases all
pulling in above $10 million to secure the top four spots, the fall box office
is back and up and running.  There
were even a few surprises amongst the fall colours to keep people guessing and
I’m not referring to Nicolas Cage’s Bangkok Dangerous plummeting nearly 70% in
its second week after barely making anything in first place last week.  That wasn’t the least bit surprising.

First of all, the Coen brothers must most definitely be
surprised as they find themselves debuting at number one for the first time
with Burn After Reading.  The
Coens’s films do not ordinarily open wide.  In fact, after The Big Lebowski, The Lady Killers and Intolerable Cruelty, Burn After Reading is only the fourth Coen brother film to
open wide right away and it is certainly the first to debut on top with such
robust numbers.  Of all the major
releases this week, this was the only picture to garner critical support.  That, in combination with the immensely
marketable cast and the buzz they earned with their Oscar win for last year’s No Country for Old Men, gave the Coens exactly what they needed to finally
convince the masses that they can make movies for them too.

Although it wouldn’t be the first time, Tyler Perry might
have been surprised to find his latest, Tyler Perry’s The Family that Preys settling for second.  Almost all of
Perry’s previous offerings have surpassed expectations at the box office to the
point where racking up $18 million seems below standard practically.  Still, the film generated the highest
per screen average of any film in the Top 10 and only came up a couple of
million shy of this spring’s Meet the Browns.

The good people at Overture must be surprised.  After all, how could a picture that
boasts the two greatest actors of our generation for the first time together on
screen – apparently the marketing folks have conveniently forgotten Heat – open
below a quirky comedy and a movie with a marginalized audience. Righteous Kill, starring Al Pacino and
Robert De Niro, opened wider than any other film and only managed an average of
$5K.  It may be modest but it is by
no means an embarrassing gross for an opening weekend – that is unless your
film stars Pacino AND De Niro.  Yes, I’m sure the folks at Overture are still shaking their heads.

Let’s not forget the ladies even though they conveniently
forget the men.  Diane English’s
remake of the 30’s classic, The Women features Annette Bening, Meg Ryan, Eva
Mendes, Jada Pinkett Smith, Debra Messing and not a single man.  That’s right.  There are no men to be found in this picture – even if one
of the women is walking down a busy New York street.  Though the film battled scathing reviews to muster a $10
million dollar debut, I’m sure English was surprised the take was not bigger.  After female-skewed hits like Sex and the City and Mamma Mia! performed so well, PictureHouse was hoping to
capitalize on the trend.  Those
films were hits because they reached past their core markets and brought in
unexpected male audiences though.  Maybe it’s because they actually had guys in them. 

The final surprise this week is for Alan Ball.  The Academy Award winning screenwriter
of American Beauty and creator of HBO’s “Six Feet Under” made his directorial
debut this week to mixed reviews and polarized controversy with Towelhead.  The film, in which an Arab-American
girl struggles with a sexual obsession, scored an impressive average of over
$13K on just four screens and secured its expansion.

NEXT WEEK: It is another busy week for Hollywood next week,
except with less high profile bows.  Still another four wide releases will hit.  Ghost Town finds Ricky Gervais seeing dead people.  John Cusack gets animated in Igor.  Samuel L. Jackson makes trouble for
neighbour, Patrick Wilson, in Lakeview Terrace.  And Dane Cook steals Kate Hudson from Jason Biggs in My Best Friend’s Girl.  This is the widest
of the four releases.  You’d think
we cared or something.