Box Office: Hugh Jackman Punches In At #1
Sunday, October 9, 2011 at 10:27PM 
I'm sorry I've been away today -- couldn't be helped -- but tomorrow I'll share my thoughts on My Week With Marilyn and update the Oscar charts.
For now, the weekend box office. It's unfortunate and bizarre to recall this or to type it out loud but the surprisingly solid opening to Hugh Jackman's ridiculous-looking Real Steel is actually not his top non-mutant opening weekend. That honor belongs to Van Helsing of all things.
Box Office (U.S.) Baker's Dozen -actuals
01 REAL STEEL new $27.3
02 IDES OF MARCH new [capsule] $10.4
03 DOLPHIN TALE $9.1 (cum $49)
04 MONEYBALL [review] $7.4 (cum $49.2)
05 50/50 [review] $5.6 (cum $17.4)
06 COURAGEOUS $4.8 (cum $16.1)
07 THE LION KING 3D [review] re-release $4.5 (cum $414.5... $85.9 of that in this rerelease)
08 DREAMHOUSE $4.4 (cum $14.4)
09 WHAT'S YOUR NUMBER? $3.1 (cum $10.3)
10 ABDUCTION [review] $2.8 (cum $23.3)
11 CONTAGION $2.9 (cum $69)
12 KILLER ELITE $2.2 (cum $21.6)
13 THE HELP [review] $2.9 (cum $162.6)
King of the Box Office JungleTalking Points
• The Help is on its last legs with a low per screen average now. But what strong legs those were.
• You can tell it's October because the grosses are way down. Despite the typical fall dip family fare is still impervious to seasonal recessions; Real Steel opened big, Dolphin Tale is a hit, and wasn't this Lion King Redux only supposed to play for two weeks?
• Cowboys and Aliens is probably in agony over its gross. Even though the would be blockbuster was a failure in relation to its (very large) budget there's a certain general bragging-rights allowance for all films that crack the magic $100 million mark. C&A's gross currently stands at $99,766,000. But that $244,000 will be hard to bridge when it's only earning $17,000 on weekdays and down to 206 theaters already. Tragedy!
• Drive crossed the $30 million mark so at least it doubled its production budget in theaters, despite not truly catching on. I'm not happy to say that we predicted this but at least the prediction came with a silver lining.
What did you see this weekend? I'm sort of dying to know if anyone of you went ringside for Hugh Jackman... or if most of you campaigned with Clooney & Co in the Oscar Primaries.
Reader Comments (17)
I kind of went movie-crazy this weekend. This weekend I ended up seeing Weekend (awesome!), Ides of March (great!), and Moneyball (so good!). So it was a very good movie-watching weekend for me. Good times.
Saw Ides of March, 50/50 and (don't judge me) What's Your Number. 2 out of 3 ain't bad :-)
I'm telling you Nat, while I'm guilty of it, too, don't knock REAL STEEL until you try it. It's a seriously big-hearted movie, and satisfies a great deal despite all the usual rhythms. The father/son element goes a REALLY long way. Fearless confession: I cried like 5 times.
I caught Ides of March and am almost completely caught up on Boardwalk Empire. In other news, have you heard that Shirley MacLaine is getting the AFI Life Achievement Award? Maybe Oscar will follow suit and give a woman an Honorary again.
Saw Ides of March. It was pretty sweet, but I can already smell Ryan Goslings invisible underrated Oscar for this one -_- one of those brilliantly quiet performances that are so necessary but go unnoticed.
I saw Real Steel and The Ides Of March. Real Steel hits every cliche in the book - it doesn't have a leg to stand on in the originality department - but it has an endearing quality that makes it entertaining to watch. As for March, I'm not big on politics in real life but the strong performances and steady pacing made it a joy to watch.
I don't think this is Gosling's best work this year but I wouldn't mind if this performance got nominated. As for the other performances, I thought they all aided the film but didn't stick out (Which in Evan Rachel Wood's case is a good thing because I don't always buy her acting).
Saw Ides of March... thought everything about it was great EXCEPT the plot!!!!
Saw Ides of March and was pretty bored. It seems like it's supposed to be good because of the subject matter and cast, but I felt like it was pretty mediocre filmmaking overall. And could someone explain Evan Rachel Wood's roots in this movie? Was she supposed to look that trashy?
Nat, I really think you should check out Real Steel. Yes, the concept looks pretty ridiculous and the film hits every cliché in the boxing movie and dysfunctional father-son movie book, but the film has such an infectious energy and a huge amount of heart that you end up won over by the movie. There's a rare instance when I throw out all of my critical thinking at the movies, and that is when the movie makes me feel like a 10-year-old again. This was that kind of movie, one that despite its flaws, was so thrilling that it made for an exciting time in a movie theater. Also, I'm happy to report that Hugh Jackman is pretty good in the role, delivering a very flawed hero you feel you should hate, but somehow you root for him. Let us all know if you give the film a shot.
Anyway, Moneyball is finally being released here in Mexico next weekend, so I'm really psyched to see it. I'm going to have to wait quite a while for The Ides of March, but I'll see it as soon as I get a chance.
A Separation. I'm so glad I did! I went just because you loved it so thank you very much.
I believe movies should be windows to other worlds (I don't mean outer space). This one is.
Also the way we get to know, love, hate, judge every single character is brilliant thanks to a precise screenplay and a bunch of strong performances.
A must see.
Real Steel, Ides of March and Moneyball are still months away from opening in Oslo :( What we do have is the Films from the South-festival, "the South" encompassing Asia, Africa and Latin America...
What I saw this weekend:
Cuban animation Chico & Rita: Cliched story, great music!
Where do we go now?: Loved it! It really captures on a small scale how large conflicts develop and how inflammatory matters of a religious nature are. It is so funny and so moving that I am willing to forgive the farfetchedness and that the shifts between the tragic and the comic are sometimes a tad abrupt. Also: Sexiest paintstains ever! ;)
Tahrir 2011: The Good, the Bad and the Politician: Fairly standard documentary, the subject is more interesting than the film itself.
Certified Copy: <3 Juliette! What an amazing film, my head is still buzzing! (I saw it last night.)
I saw five films in 48 hours. RESTLESS bored me to tears (and I was the only one in the theatre), THE IDES OF MARCH was solid (P.S. Hoffman is best in show for me), THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (a mess, but the highlight was a fight in the theatre between faux punks and asshole muscleheads. Do people still insult each other by calling them 'nerds?'), THE INTERRUPTERS (Well done, if a little long. Inappropriate laughing by overweight white woman left me uncomfortable.) and finally, MELANCHOLIA at Sunday Cinema Club. I admit I was a Kiki hater, but she nailed 'Justine'. (The more I think about the film, the more I like it. However, the guest moderator did everything he could to convince the largely senior citizen crowd that they'd hate the film, which was strange since this is tame for von Trier.)
Saw Ides of March and 50/50, and I'm seeing Trespass at a screening tonight (um...yay?). Ides was solid, although nothing about it struck me as award-worthy, and I think it's actually Gosling's weakest performance of the year. He kept defaulting to this weird bug-eyed look that made him look more like a psychotic killer rather than a man learning about dirty politics the hard way. 50/50, on the other hand, was exceptionally well done, albeit not quite great. I'm not sure they really needed to make Bryce Dallas Howard an antagonist the way they did.
I saw Ides this weekend. To say the least it was alright, could've been better though. I don't see anything special outta Gosling's performance nor the movie. I was a bit surprise that the climax was coming out of wood's character. Tomei was way underuse, she appears like 10 minutes throughout the whole movie. Oh well!
After spending most of my free time and money in movie theaters last month, I opted for a quiet night at home with "Bram Stoker's Dracula," a favorite of mine from my pre-adolescence -- though now I view it with more discerning eyes. I absolutely refuse to see a movie based on Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot toys.
Troy -- i love BSD too. and who cares about discerning eyes with that one ;) sometimes crazy excess is just what the material demands.
Ugh, why wasn't a big Oscar arthouse hopeful released this weekend? There was nothing new in the arthouse other than "1911" and "Human Centipede 2". Something like "Martha Marcy May Marlene" could've made a killer attack.