CinemaNerdz

Weekend Box Office: Epic Struggle as End of Watch and House on the End of the Street Fight for First

Seth Paul

While the Monday totals will officially decide which movie comes out on top, it was a tough call to make between the crime drama End of Watch, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and written and directed by David Ayer (of Training Day fame), and the PG-13 horror House at the End of the Street. Both films made an estimated $13 million, but as I write this, End of Watch currently holds the lead due to a higher average per theater take (it is showing in three hundred fewer theaters than House on the End of the Street). Not that either film is in trouble…their relatively low budgets ($7 million and $10 million, respectively) have given both films a solid head start, even if they are not runaway smashes. Trailing not too far behind them is Trouble with the Curve, the Clint Eastwood baseball vehicle with an estimated $12.7 million. No word on whether Trouble with the Curve is a domestic success, but of the top three films, only End of Watch is making any headway with critics.

Finding Nemo 3D got pushed from the top three (and double digits) with an estimated $9.4 million, but it turned the tables on Resident Evil: Retribution, which made a big drop from its first place spot last week with an estimated $6.7 million. Not that it matters much; despite only making $33.5 million domestically, the film has broken the $100 million mark in foreign box office alone, making it currently the least successful domestic venture for the franchise, but climbing the charts in worldwide take.

The Judge Dredd remake, Dredd, starring Karl Urban, had been getting high critical marks, but failed to make much of a mark at the box office, with only an estimated $6.3 million for its debut weekend. At a $50 million budget, that is a lot of ground to make up…however, an estimated $5 million this weekend might be a good sign for The Master, which opened to wide release for its second week in theaters. Directed by one of two Paul Andersons on the Top Ten this week (the other being Paul W.S. Anderson of Resident Evil: Retribution), the critics have had no trouble lavishing praise on Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1950s era drama, though it too has a lot of ground to make up on its reported $35 million budget.

The bottom of the list houses two successes and one surprising failure…The Possession earned an estimated $2.6 million and blew past its $15 million budget for a comfortable $45.7 million. Lawless, as it turns out, is actually a box office success, now that it has been reported that it cost $12 million to make. It’s disappointing $10 million opening box office turned out to be almost enough to break even, and its estimated $2.3 million has placed it in a very comfortable $34.5 million. However, the same cannot be said of ParaNorman, who despite critical praise made only an estimated $2.3 million this week and $52.6 million domestically…and its worldwide sales only amount to a grand total of $77.6 million, still short of its $80 million budget.

Weekend Box-Office (September 21st – September 23rd)

  1. End of Watch…$13 million
  2. House on the End of the Street…$13 million
  3. Trouble with the Curve…$12.7 million
  4. Finding Nemo 3D…$9.4 million
  5. Resident Evil: Retribution…$6.7 million
  6. Dredd…$6.3 million
  7. The Master…$5 million
  8. The Possession…$2.6 million
  9. Lawless…$2.3 million
  10. ParaNorman…$2.3 million

Seth Paul

When not failing to write novels and screenplays, box-office guru Seth writes humorous comedy tracks for films under the name "The One Man Band" that can be found at Rifftrax.com. Although, he has recently succeeded in writing the novella "Jack Alan and the Case of the Not-Exactly Rocket Scientists," available as an eBook on Amazon. He is also the English voice of Zak in "Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space."
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