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SATURDAY PM/SUNDAY AM 3RD UPDATE: Late shows made the difference after a sluggish Friday box office, especially for matinees. But attendance picked up dramatically on Saturday, as much as +24%-to-+38%, allowing a clear winner for the 3-day weekend to emerge, Focus Features’ The American starring George Clooney with $12.9M. Sony’s holdover Takers was close behind Saturday. But Machete from Robert Rodriguez should finish the 3-day weekend with $11.3M, good enough for 2nd place. Here are Friday, Saturday, and estimated Labor Day holiday weekend grosses for North America. Analysis coming:
1. The American (Focus Features) NEW [2,823 Theaters] Opened Wed
Friday $3.8M, Saturday $4.9M, 3-Day Weekend $13.3M, Est 4-Day Holiday $16.1M, Est Cume $19.2M
This is the way a Clooney picture should be sold from now on. Even though early exits show that attendance was partly driven by the “George Clooney factor”, he just can’t muster wide domestic appeal even if he is still a big name on the international scene. Focus Features marketed Clooney’s The American to his core +35 adult audience as the more cerebral and sophisticated choice that was a counterprogramming alternative to the summer’s mindless crap. (Focus did the same with 2005′s The Constant Gardener.) Problem is, moviegoers didn’t like what they saw: the CinemaScore was a poor “D-”. Focus execs say Control helmer Anton Corbijn’s performance exceeded internal projections which undoubtedly it did. But a star of Clooney’s status should be able to muster a better 6-day opening than just $16.1M — and didn’t.
2. Machete (Fox) NEW [2,670 Theaters]
Friday $3.9M, Saturday $3.9M, 3-Day Weekend $11.3M, Est 4-Day Holiday $14.7M)
With an opening of only an $11.3M three-day weekend, it helps that 20th Century Fox acquired this Robert Rodriguez pic for only $6M. ”We always believed the movie would be so strong in the Latino community. After all, it’s a Latino director with cachet, a great Hispanic cast, and part of our sell has been that Machete is the first Latino superhero,” a Fox exec explained to me before the pic opened with a “B” CinemaScore. 
Fox did everything it could to attract a Latino audience: big ad buys on Telemundo and Univision and Latino newspapers and radio and crossover stations. The studio also brought the cast to Miami for a press day to do 26 shows. At the premiere screening in Downtown LA, all the cast arrived at the Orpheum in low-riders. Sure, cineastes knew the pic had a big cool quotient as that famously fake trailer by Rodriguez from Grindhouse. It was considered the single best thing about that Weinstein Co double-feature flop. (Machete‘s YouTube video alone had 1.4 million views back then.) Fox beat back 5 other studios all very interested in domestic distribution rights to Rodriguez’ latest – again, made outside the studio system with indie financing help from Rick Schwartz’s Overnight Productions. Rodriquez raised $20 million from selling international rights to Sony and making some other global sales and another $5 million he borrowed. Rodriguez not only wrote and produced the pic but he also co-directed it with Ethan Maniquis. So Rodriguez asked for a big backend gross participation in the 10%-12% neighborhood. But even with an eclectic cast of Robert De Niro, Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, and of course Danny Trejo, why didn’t it do better at the box office? In the end, that Hard “R” may attract some moviegoers but also repels others and always depresses grosses.
- Filmmakers Reveal That Hidden ‘Machete’ Message Is Exploitation – Not Immigration
- Danny Trejo Hits Comic-Con With ‘Machete’ And Plans To Craft Tough Guy Vehicles
3. Takers (Screen Gems/Sony) Week 2 [2,206 Theaters]
Friday $3.1M, Saturday $4.3M, 3-Day Weekend $11.2M (-45%), Est 4-Day Holiday $14.5M, Est Cume $40.5M
4. The Last Exorcism (Lionsgate) Week 2 [2,874 Theaters]
Friday $2.3M, Saturday $3M, 3-Day Weekend $7.8M (-62%), Est 4-Day Holiday $9.5M, Est Cume $34.3M
5. Going The Distance (Warner Bros) NEW [3,030 Theaters]
Friday $2.2M, Saturday $2.4M, 3-Day Weekend $6.8M, Est 4-Day Holiday $8.5M
Ugh, what is there to say? Drew Barrymore may still be appealing to some moviegoers (though not in this dumb rom-com), but Justin Long never was. As one of my commenters said, time for both to do television.
6. The Expendables (Lionsgate) Week 4 [3,398 Theaters]
Friday $1.6M, Saturday $2.4M, 3-Day Weekend $6.6M, Est 4-Day Holiday $8.2M, Est Cume $94M
7. The Other Guys (Sony) Week 5 [2,607 Theaters]
Friday $1.3M, Saturday $1.9M, 3-Day Weekend $5.4M, Est 4-Day Holiday $6.6M, Est Cume $108M
8. Eat Pray Love (Sony) Week 4 [2,663 Theaters]
Friday $1.3M, Saturday $1.8M, 3-Day Weekend $4.8M, Est 4-Day Holiday $6.5M, Est Cume $70.5M
9. Inception (Warner Bros) Week 8 [1,704 Theaters]
Friday $1.1M, 3-Day Weekend $4.5M, Est 4-Day Holiday $6M, Est Cume $278.4M
10. Nanny McPhee Returns (Working Title/Universal) Week 3 [2,708 Theaters]
Friday $875K, 3-Day Weekend $3.6M, Est 4-Day Holiday $5M, Est Cume $23.9M
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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I don’t get why Clooney movies never do that well at the box office. I thought everyone loves George clooney? Drew Barrymoore too
Was that irony?
When Clooney chose to mix into politics, it became inevitable that he would turn off a segment of his potential fanbase, no matter what those politic were.
Drew Barrymore is single for good reasons. Many reasons.
No one outside of the industry has ever loved Clooney. If you go in a meeting they’ll lie to your face and say “oh, he’s huge foreign” but then you check his number and realize he’s worse overseas than in the states. His only hits are when he’s being propped up by real stars like Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. He’s always been a fraud. And now he’s an old fraud.
Wow, Bill, your obsession with Clooney is getting pathetic. What happened – he stole your girlfriend?
Drew is done, Whip it bombed and Going the Distance…she better beg for role from Spielberg
Whip It was critically successful though (and she directed that film)
The Town will prolly be more a critical success than financial, look at Gone Baby Gone ALSO directed by Ben Affleck, it was an amazing film and critics agreed but no one went.
Drew is not done. She’s one of the few people ON THE PLANET that will continue to star in movies. Sylvester Stallone just proved this. As talented and current as other actors may be. That’s just how it goes.
Whip it? Really? You’re using a tiny, independent film that Barrymore didn’t even STAR in as an indicator of her star power?
Oh, and for the record, the film had a $10 million budget, which it easily outgrossed. Not really a bomb, but then again, who’s counting?
She’s not “done” she just needs, and deserves, better roles than this. She’s profusely talented. She can do gut-wrenching drama, has great comedic timing, is adorable yet can also be sexy, and can play almost any age range. But these silly romantic comedies and such are just beneath her. She should be getting more dramatic gigs, straight comedy gigs, and also directing more as she proved she’s multi-talented with Whip It.
Two failed films doesn’t automatically mean she’s done. If so, then why are we still being subjected to Jennier Aniston’s traumatizing visage on screen?
Besides, Drew is a bright woman. She can always concentrate on producing instead of acting. She has a marquee family name and still has a lot of friends in Hollywood. Just because she isn’t on fire in front of the camera doesn’t mean she can’t work behind it.
*sigh* More people who would rather see George Clooney make a profitable movie instead of something like Confessions of a Dangerous Mind that is actually good.
Good grief, talk about BOMBS. Between Going the Distance and The Swith, I think the rom-com might be officially DEAD. Nobody is going to see those things anymore.
I am surprised that EPL is already estimated to be at 72 million, that would be ahead of where Julie & Julia was at this time (and that movie made 94 million). Is Julia Roberts going to somehow take EPL over 90 million despite the awful reviews, word of mouth, and limited demo appeal? Well that would be some hat trick, it’s nice to see one movie star doing pretty good numbers though I guess (plus she does give a good performance in the film).
All of the movies that opened August 20th sunk like the damn Titanic (Vampires Suck, Pirhana, Lottery Ticket), geez! They’re not even in the top 5!
To everyone who is ranting about Machete’s political slant.
RR came up with this idea TEN YEARS AGO. And it was in Grindhouse in 2007!!!! He said THEN, we was going to make this film.
The Cinco De Mayo trailer was NOT REAL!!!
The film is pure exploitation with a hint of politics – as exploitation films are.
Trejo plays a MEXICAN COP, NOT AN ILLEGAL.
Get your facts straight before you judge. The film is meant to be a fun bloodbath. Get over yourself.
Don’t confuse the ‘baggers with facts. They don’t know what to do with them.
The problem with these top three is they look like – and were marketed to look like – everything we already paid to see or decided NOT to pay to see. Same old, same old. Bad, bad summer.
LOL! Clooney looks so old and decrepit, I wonder if they got a stunt double just to do his stills.
Those are some decent numbers for “The American.” Movies like that typically don’t do very well. A slow, European character driven film. Not bad.
Eeek! 74% drop for LAST EXORCISM. And, there were folks here babbling about how audiences they saw the film with liked it. Just like PIRANHA 3D the weekend before.
Folks, the best barometer for a film’s success the next weekend are not the seemingly newly inflated Rotten Tomatoes scores (they ARE letting in too many “reviews” from Fanboy sites these days), BUT, the Cinemascore results.
LAST EXORCISM got a “D”. PIRANHA 3D a “C”.
Don’t let the studio flaks, fanboy engorged Tomatoes scores or all those tweets, web posts and other anecdotal reports sway you: Cinemascore gives you the best impression of what the broad audience feels about a given film. That is in NO WAY an endorsement of Cinemascore as an arbiter of taste, however!!!!
Told ya Machete would have better numbers. That’s awesome. Hope it wins the weekend with at least $20M despite predictions. I still think it’ll see a bump tonight and Monday.
“Told ya.” Ah, what a difference a “J” makes… LOL!
Machete will win the weekend. You’ll see. Their is currently an effort underway to save face for Clooney by downgrading Machete. You will hear on Tuesday that Machete wins. Or maybe you won’t here it…
I am glad Inception has come to a threshold domestically. It will never make it to 300 million. This overrated piece of crap is losing its hype. Hopefully it will fall out from to 15 soon.
Actually, these numbers don’t seem too far off the mark- Labor Day weekend is just that slow. For example, this is comparable to last year, when holdover The Final Destination took in $15 million for the 4-day weekend.
Most action films over the past few years have opened at around $7-10 million (Gamer, Bangkok Dangerous, and Crank). You have to go back to 2007′s Halloween to find a “massive” 4-day weekend ($30 million) and 2005′s Transporter 2 for a big action hit ($20 million).
So while Machete was tipped by most pundits to win the weekend, it was only expected to do so with $14-18 million over 4 days.
I know people don’t like it when politics is discussed on this board, but I think that politics played a role in the weak BO numbers.
If you hear that George Clooney is going to be starring in a movie called “The American”, you are going to assume that it will have an anti-American theme; perhaps it will be about a rogue CIA agent who kills puppies in Nicaragua or something like that. Clooney wants to be taken seriously so he makes these boring, self-important political films that nobody wants to see. That might not be the case with this one but the audience doesn’t trust Clooney.
In terms of “Machete”, Rodriguez is right that illegal immigration is an incredibly hot issue right now. However, the vast majority are opposed to illegal immigration, not sympathetic to it. When you hear that Robert Rodriguez is making a 70′s exploitation-style film called “Machete” with an illegal-immigration theme, you are going to assume that it’s going to be like “Kill Bill”, only with an illegal immigrant playing Uma Thurman’s part and going after the Gringos with machetes. That might not be what it’s about at all but that’s the perception; and that sort of movie is going to have a very limited box office.
As far as I can tell the only two people in the world that love 70′s exploitation films are Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, it shouldn’t be a surprise that this one flopped.
Both were made on microscopic budgets and performed solidly. Nice try. Back to Drudge with you…
Grindhouse flopped hard too. Somebody tell me why we’re getting spinoffs from a flop?
Drew should finally try television.
So should Justin.
I would like to see a vampire movie in which both Justin Long and Michael Cera meet a bloody gruesome demise and then mysteriously disappear for the rest of the tmie…along with any footage of them.
I fail to understand how Eat, Pray, Love can still be in the Top 10. Is that an indictment on the rest of the crap that is out there or on the people buying the tickets? (Or on me!)
“Americans in flyover country … don’t like George Clooney?” That is the most ridiculous statement I’ve read on here in a long time, and there have been some pretty ridiculous statements.
So, “Takers” drops 60% but still ALMOST BEATS “The American”? Once again, I’m left to wonder what it is about the cast of “Takers” that the “film elite” don’t understand actually APPEALS to viewers?
And maybe the performance of “Machete” will finally stop the habit of Hollywood believing that what happens in July in San Diego is actually what’s going to happen in the rest of the country months later. After “Scott Pilgrim,” “Machete,” “Jonah Hex,” “Watchmen” and “Kick-Ass,” can’t clueless marketing execs take a hint? Just because you like to party at the Hard Rock Hotel does NOT mean Comic-Con amounts to anything at all. No one cares about the “geek culture” except the geeks, and they just aren’t a big enough audience to drive … squat.
@Wowzah: Geoff has never trashed anyone’s movie or told writers they weren’t as talented. Though when he does have opinions, at least he puts his name on it, you worthless troll.
Hi, Geoff!
Thanks for stopping by, Geoff La Tullippe. Glad you could make time from endlessly shoving your movie down our throats. Can’t wait to read the next inspired Tweet!
I may be a nobody in the Midwest, but at least I’m talented
@Frog&Maggot: It’s called being a movie star. Hollywood needs those as well as actors with chameleon like range. There is a difference between the two. Clooney does it well. If we were back in time a bit, would you be saying, “Carey Grant, playing Carey Grant, in another Cary Grant movie? Jimmy Stewart, playing Jimmy Stewart, in another Jimmy Stewart movie. Humphrey Bogart, playing….”?
@PatKat: It seems Friday’s box office would indicate anything other than his steam evaporating.
Have either of you actually seen the movie or are you basing this on speculation from ads and trailers? It’s a pretty good movie. It’s better than TRANSFORMERS sequels.
He writes, producers, directs, and is a movie star. That is pretty good for a guy from Kentucky. Nobody handed him anything because he Aunt was Rosemary Clooney. I believe free rent was all he initially received upon landing in Hollywood. We all get old. You will not be able to escape it either. I hope when I get to be Clooney’s age, I look half as good.
No surprises here. The American’s trailer and commercials were vague at best and sleep-inducing at worst. And as someone else said, George is suddenly looking awfully long in the tooth. And I am the only one who momentarily thought it was a Euro art house reimagining of old Tom Clancy material? I guess a spy-ish lead named Jack might do that. Anyway, how disastrously marketed.
GTD looked like a turd from the start. I’m very ready for Justin Long to finally disappear. And Drew needs to drop the giggly Valley Girl act. It might have been cute at 25, maybe even 30. But not anymore.
I’m sorry to see Eat Pray Love doing fairly well. Not because I dislike Julia Roberts, but cannot bear the thought of Liz Gilbert making any more money off that claptrap.
Drew’s a funny gal, but the romcom is such a bland genre that the leading names are really the only draw, and hers no longer sets off a ‘ping’ in that demo’s brains. I think she should give drama a shot; she was very good in Donnie Darko, after all.
Who says politics aren’t alive and well in film critique. “Expendables” received a 40 percent consensus from film critics as many pointed to its violence and its lack luster story of good vs evil as the reason, not politics. This week “Machete” receives a 73 percent consensus with many pointing to its much more extreme violence and nudity and racism as the reason for its praise and guilty pleasure viewing. Its seems many of today’s critics are more interested in whose name is on the product and what message the product represents for its pros and cons never mind the artistic accomplishments of the product.
Liberal critics hate film violence except when they love it. Canada’s Brian Johnson tore strips off Mel Gibson for the violence in “Passion of the Christ”, then turned around and praised a zombie film for its “entertaining” scenes of exploding heads and buckets of blood. When his lack of consistency was pointed out to him by readers, he couldn’t come up with any defense other than that the zombie flick was “fun”. So I guess if you’re a liberal, violence for entertainment is OK, but violence for the purpose of pathos is reprehensible… or something.
I, um…think it had to do with the fact that the violence in “Passion of the Christ” was so over-the-top ridiculous that it BECAME the film as opposed to helping or being a part of it – Christ’s message wasn’t that he was savagely beaten to death – it was to love thy neighbor. Didn’t see much of that in the film, did we? It was a film made by a sadist for masochists. Just my opinion of course.
Irrelevant. Johnson’s entire point was that the VIOLENCE per se in Passion was somehow reprehensible. He then lauded a complete gore-fest of a movie, and when challenged on his hypocrisy he tried to weasel his way out with a ludicrous argument about cinematic violence being perfectly acceptable as long as it was meant to be “fun”.
According to this logic, Saving Private Ryan would be obscene while torture-porn movies like Hostel would be just fine. At least to the Brian Johnsons of this world.
Why try and confuse right-wing hypocrites with facts? They love violence when it involves eeeevilll people-not-like-them getting beaten–or when it reflects what they think religion is about, namely suffering, abuse, and pain. Any other kind–well, that’s just sacrilegious/wrong.
Drew Barrymore was never a star and continues to not be one. Sure, she was cute in E.T. but that was last century and now she’s pushing 40 and trying to play 16 and it’s just pathetic. And her face looks weird now. Too much botox or… something. Justin Long is not a star either and never will be no matter how many times he’s shoved down our throats. He’ll always be coughed back up. The fact that the script for this wreck was on the Black List (supposedly the best scripts in town) just goes to prove William Goldman correct. Nobody knows anything.
Speaking of smelly things getting coughed up, can George Clooney please stay at home for five minutes? The very sight of him makes me want to vomit. Don’t get me started on what he passes off as acting.
Yeah. Gonna make 14 mil opening weekend when it cost 20 mil to make. What a failure
Haha sooooooo true.. I don’t think I’ve seen a slower movie in my life! I didn’t think it was possible to make a movie about absolutely nothing. At least most movies that are weak on plot (usually character studies) actually have interesting characters that you care about. That is NOT the case with the American (and I think at least some if not most of the blame needs to go to Clooney for a performance he sleeps through..all though there is plenty of blame to go around to the writer and director).
No one wants to see a movie about a grumpy guy who goes to Italy and slowly makes a gun, has long awkward sex with prostitutes (6 people walked out in my theater alone during this one sex scene with one woman putting her hands in the air and shouting “I’ve had enough!”).
George Clooney being a huge movie star “the last true movie star” some have argued is entirely a myth.. Like another poster said all of
America won’t rush to a movie to see him and doesn’t gush over him. This idea of him as a lucrative super star is a Hollywood phenomena.
Even the rest of LA doesn’t much care for him.
I have friends who will not see a movie if he’s in it because they’ve been bored out of their mind by his previous films. I don’t happen to
agree, I think he had indeed made some films I enjoy (good night and good luck, Michael
Clayton, up in the air) but most of the public were bored by these, just look at the grosses. And Clooney’s alleged star power hasn’t been able to and probably will never be able to bring people into those theater seats.
When someone starts ranting about the myth of Clooney’s “star power,” it’s usually a rightwing douchebag blind with rage over Clooney’s politics.
Exactly. Wingers particularly hate Clooney because, whether they like it or not, he’s the closest thing to old-school stars like Grant and Stewart that Hollywood has in terms of chemistry and good career management. And it really burns them that he won’t suck up to their need to have a “Great White Daddy who’s a hateful conservative scumbag” representative on- and off-screen. They resent that he won’t represent their fantasies or support their policies like a “real All-American star” would. It’s the same reason they hate Bill Clinton–he’s a southern good ol’ boy who showed he wasn’t “one of them,” and they are never going to forgive that “betrayal.”
Slow and boring translates to a significant decrease in tolerance of the average audience member. I’ve encountered many people, raised on BACK TO THE FUTURE and THE BREAKFAST CLUB, who think THE MALTESE FALCON (or anything in black and white) is slow and boring. I sadly suspect the younger generation, raised on CRANK and its bile-inducing sequel, looks at THE AMERICAN and doesn’t quite understand the language.