'The Last Exorcism' casts down 'The Expendables'

After two weeks of manful box office leadership, Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables was taken down by the Eli Roth-produced The Last Exorcism. The film, a super cheap, no stars horror made more than ten times its $2 million production budget in its first weekend in release. With the success of Exorcism and fellow horror cheapie Paranormal Activity, expect the marketplace to be flooded with Blair Witch-inspired movies this time next year. Anybody curious as to where mainstream horror was going to go after the popularity of Japanese horror remakes and Saw-style torture porn waned now has their answer: third wave indie horror. 

The week's other hot young thing, John Luessenhop's stylish heist movie Takers, debuted at number two with a strong $21 million showing. The film, which was only $300,000 away from claiming the top spot, earned back more than its budget in its first week despite not having a bigger name in its cast than Paul Walker. Crime can be a very profitable genre and with by keeping costs low, the producers behind Takers (including newly minted ex-con T.I.) saw a huge return of a low risk venture which should make their investors very happy.  

Last week's champ, The Expendables, fell to the number three spot with a $9.2 million, pushing the film's worldwide total to $82 million. The film is now the sixth highest grossing independently release film in North American box office history and writer/director/star Stallone's biggest film since 1993's Cliffhanger. Dare we hope for an Expendables sequels with 80's stalwarts Steven "actually, I've secretly been a police officer for 20 years" Seagal and Chuck "can slam a revolving door" Norris? 

Of last week's new releases, cinematic abomination Vampires Suck did the best, taking in $5.3 million in its second week. The loathsome Twilight parody has now made $28 million which means the hacks behind the film will get to make another one while Anchorman 2 languishes in development hell. Good job, world. Nanny McPhee Returns continued to flounder. The film fell 43% from its debut with a $4.7 million weekend haul. The Jennifer Aniston comedy The Switch also performed poorly, falling two places from its bow a week ago with a piddly $4.6 million. The film is still $2 million away from making back its $19 million production budget. Piranha 3D also had a rough second week, falling 57% from its debut, making the film's modest $24 million budget seems like a bad idea. Once again, post-production 3D proves to be an iffy investment. Despite Piranha's impressive decline, it was no match for the 62% tumble that befell the urban comedy called Lottery Ticket. The film fell a crushing six places this week with a meager $4 million gross. Luckily the film only cost $17 million so its already made back it's money but wow is that a shocking lack of endurance.  

In mixed blessing news, James Cameron's Avatar: Special (cash grab) Edition opened to a fairly tepid $4 million, twelfth place opening. After an insane $1 billion theatrical run, everyone on the planet who had any interest in seeing that film saw it already and its already been released on DVD and Blu ray. A re-release less than a year after its debut is a move designed to drain every remaining drop of blood out of the corpse of a hugely successful film. That's the good news. The bad news is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, the summer best movie, dropped almost half of its theaters in its third week in a release and dropped to fourteenth place with $2.4 million. Here's hoping it finds the audience it deserves in the home video market.

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The top ten movies for August 27-29, 2010 were

1. The Last Exorcism $21.3M
2. Takers $21M
3. The Expendables $9.5M
4. Eat Pray Love $7M
5. The Other Guys $6.6m
6. Vampires Suck $5.3M
7. Inception $5.1M
8. Nanny McPhee Returns $4.7M
9. The Switch $4.6M
10. Piranha 3D $4.3M

(Data courtesy of Box Office Mojo)

Mario blogs regularly at A Polemic Killer Room.