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Weekend Box Office: 'Couples Retreat' roosts atop the box office
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Vince Vaughn and crew in Couples Retreat. Photo: Universal Pictures
Vince Vaughn and Jon Favareau took control of the box office this weekend as the stars’ new film Couples Retreat entertained audiences to become the most watched film in the country. Elsewhere in the top 10, the ultra low budget horror flick Paranormal Activity expanded to scorching numbers in its attempt to become the word-of-mouth phenomenon of the year.
Despite earning poor reviews and mediocre grades from audiences, Couples Retreat, the third major collaboration between writers/stars Vaughn and Favareau, topped the box office with an estimated $34.2 million in weekend grosses. The film, which also stars Jason Bateman, Faizon Love, Malin Ackerman, Kristin Davis and Kristin Bell illustrated that bringing together a bunch of stars, putting them in Bora Bora and subjecting them to immature gags is enough to pull in audiences. Adding to the film’s high earnings was the complete lack of new competition. As such, the number stands as the highest Columbus Day weekend gross in history as well as the sixth highest opening for a film in October. A good marketing campaign will help a movie make a strong dent opening weekend but its real test will be in the coming weekend as word-of-mouth spreads.
Dropping to second place was last weekend’s top film, the zombie-comedy Zombieland, which lost 40% of its audience, a very strong number for a horror film. Most horror films tend to drop between 50 to 70% of their audiences by the second weekend. The 40% drop makes it evident that buzz is strong with the film. With a $100 million final gross in range, look for Zombieland to become the highest grossing zombie film of all time, besting Zach Snyder’s 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.
Also dropping a spot to third place was the season’s biggest hit, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, earning $11.5 million. Again, losing a very low 27% of its target demo, the 3-D animated film has lifted its total to $95.8 million, gunning for a final total in the $150 million range.
Creating shockwaves at the North American box office was the indie horror film Paranormal Activity, which continued its amazing run at the box office this weekend by grossing a stunning $7.9 million from only 160 locations nationwide. The stunning box office certainly calls to mind the success of The Blair Witch Project which opened to similar results in August of 1999. Like Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity was shot as a reality-styled single camera film and used only two actors and a single setting. Like Blair Witch, the horror film opened in a few locations and used word-of-mouth to build its earnings. Paranormal Activity used the Twitter and Facebook generation to its advantage to build buzz. The film expands nationwide this coming weekend.
Slipping two spots to fifth was the Pixar 3-D double feature of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 which earned $7.7 million this weekend to raise the total to $22.7 million. After the unexpectedly high grosses, Disney has decided to expand the limited two week engagement until the end of the month.
Bruce Willis’ sci-fi action picture Surrogates fell to sixth place this weekend bringing in $4.3 million. With only $32.7 million in the bank so far, Surrogates is another expensive flop in Willis’ career and he might need to rethink before signing up for another one of these expensive genre films.
All the good reviews in the world couldn’t help Ricky Gervais’ The Invention of Lying at the box office as the film lost 53% of its audience, adding only $3.3 million to bring its overall earnings to miserable $12.3 million. Look for this one to be hitting DVD stands by the end of the year. Also performing badly was Whip It, the well-received directorial debut of Drew Barrymore which earned $2.8 million to bring its total to a mere $8.7 million.
Rounding out the top ten were Michael Moore’s documentary Capitalism: A Love Story, which dropped 41% of its audience for a $2.6 million gross and Fame which earned $2.5 million.
Next week sees the opening of three high profile films: Jamie Foxx and Gerald Butler face-off in the action thriller Law Abiding Citizen, Academy Award-nominated director Spike Jonze brings to life Maurice Sendak’s classic story in Where the Wild Things Are and Screen Gems spews the horror remake of The Stepfather. For last week’s top ten, click here.
The Weekend Top 10 (October 2-4, 2009)*
1.) Couples Retreat (Universal) - $34.2 million
2.) Zombieland (Sony) - $14.8 million
3.) Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Sony) - $11.5 million
4.) Paranormal Activity (Paramount) - $7.9 million
5.) Toy Story/Toy Story 2 in 3D (Buena Vista) - $7.7 million
6.) Surrogates (Buena Vista) - $4.2 million
7.) The Invention of Lying (Warner Bros.) - $3.3 million
8.) Whip It (Fox Searchlight) - $2.8 million
9.) Capitalism: A Love Story (Overture) - $2.6 million
10.) Fame (MGM) - $2.5 million
*For a list of full weekend estimates, please visit BoxOfficeMojo.com
Source: Box Office Mojo
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