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Posted August 29, 2011 by Seth Paul in News
 
 

Weekend Box-Office: The Help Takes on All Comers – Stays On Top!

Despite the release of three new films, the competition paled in comparison to The Help, which entered a second week in the #1 slot…and for its third week made an estimated $14.3 million, with nearly $100 million in domestic profits.  It was a fine showing compared to the ill-reviewed newcomers Colombiana, starring Zoe Saldana as an assassin seeking revenge on the criminals who murdered her parents (which earned an estimated $10.3 million), and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, the Gullermo del Toro-written update of the 1973 television horror story of impish monsters terrorizing a family. The film only picked up an estimated $8.7 million.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes continues to drop, coming in fourth for the week, but not without pride: the film may have turned up with an estimated $8.7 million (just shy of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark), but is one of two films currently in the top ten to gross over $100 million…closer to $148.8 million actually. And just because a film didn’t make much doesn’t mean it wasn’t a success…the new Paul Rudd comedy, Our Idiot Brother, may appear to have opened poorly with only an estimated $6.6 million, but with a price tag of only $5 million it has already shown a profit. Meanwhile, with horrible reviews, Spy Kids 4D: All the Time in the World made an estimated $5.7 million…enough to bring it closer to profitability, but nowhere near the $100 million mark that the earlier films either breached or came close to (in the case of Spy Kids 2, with $85.6 million).

The Smurfs, although it slid two places to seventh, still earned an estimated $4.8 million, making it the second film on the list to top $100 million in domestic gross. This puts it in a much better spot than Conan the Barbarian, which is destined to be a critically-panned and a financial flop with an estimated $3.1 million this weekend, and Fright Night, a critically well-received but financial flop with the estimated $3 million it made this weekend putting slightly below half its budgeted cost.

The final holdout is Crazy, Stupid, Love, which, along with The Smurfs, has lasted five weeks in the top ten, and if the trend continues, goes off of the top ten next week a modest success, picking up an estimated $2.9 million for a total of $69.5 million in domestic gross.

Weekend Box-Office (August 26 – August 28)

  1. The Help…$14.3 million
  2. Colombiana…$10.3 million
  3. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark…$8.7 million
  4. Rise of the Planet of the Apes…$8.7 million
  5. Our Idiot Brother…$6.6 million
  6. Spy Kids 4D: All the Time in the World…$5.7 million
  7. The Smurfs…$4.8 million
  8. Conan the Barbarian…$3.1 million
  9. Fright Night…$3 million
  10. Crazy, Stupid, Love…$2.9 million
Seth Paul

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."