Weekend Box-Office: January 7-9, 2011

WEEKEND BOX-OFFICE

Finally,
True Grit hits #1….!!

I don’t think any of us were
surprised not to see Nic Cage’s latest entitled SEASON OF
THE WITCH open in the #1 spot this weekend, as it posted an
abysmal 4% positive rating on Rotten
Tomatoes (only 4 out of 74 reviewers recommended it) and
proved to be the ideal "January dump release" movie in
every which way. The film opened in 3rd place with about $10M,
which left the #1 spot open to both TRUE GRIT and LITTLE FOCKERS,
with the latter holding the top spot over the past two weeks, but
I guess the time had come for TRUE GRIT as it surpassed those
fockers and secured the #1 spot this week with $15M added to their
already-impressive total.

TRUE GRIT also became the first Western since the
1990s to surpass the $100M mark, and doesn’t show any signs of
slowing down just yet. The film also became the Coen brothers’
highest-grossing movie ever surpassing NO COUNTRY FOR OLD
MEN ($74M) and BURN AFTER READING ($60M).

And speaking of career-high movies, Darren
Aronofsky’s BLACK SWAN seems to be the ideal film for him at this
stage of his career, as he prepares to take on his first major
commercial venture with THE WOLVERINE, SWAN has quickly become his
own high-grossing movie ever, surpassing the combined total
of his previous 4 movies all together (PI – $3M, REQUIEM FOR A
DREAM – $3M, THE FOUNTAIN – $10M, THE WRESTLER – $26M). In the
case of both TRUE GRIT and BLACK SWAN, the films only cost $38M
and $11M respectively, so the profit margins are gonna be real
sweet for the studios backing them to boot.

Many may say that LITTLE FOCKERS and TRON: LEGACY
are successful as well, but with budgets of $100M and $170M
respectively, you can see how the two smaller movies are more
enticing financially. Speaking of which, the other "new
movie" to pop into the top 10 this week was the wide release
of Gwyneth Paltrow’s COUNTRY STRONG which opened in 6th place with
about $7M, while costing only about $15M to make. The two films to
get booted from the top 10 this weekend were the latest NARNIA
movie ($95M) and the real "bomb" of the season,
GULLIVER’S TRAVELS, which ended up grossing only $35M, despite
costing about $112M to make.

Next week sees the release of two "big
movies" with "big stars" and "big
directors", but both of which look pretty ho-hum so far. The
first is THE
GREEN HORNET starring Seth Rogen and Cameron Diaz, directed by
Michel Gondry and the second film is a comedy directed by Ron
Howard starring Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Jennifer Connelly and
Winona Ryder (one of these things just doesn’t belong here…)
entitled THE
DILEMMA. Since we’re JoBlo.com, this week’s poll question
wants to know whether or not you’re stoked to see THE GREEN
HORNET. Well…are you!?? VOTE
NOW!!!

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