Box Office - 'Knowing' Takes Top Spot, $25 Million

For the first time in a while, the top movies at the box office performed fairly consistently in their debut weekend. After seeing Watchmen make half of its cash on Friday and The Last House on the Left appear to be competitive last Friday only to dry up over the next couple of days, all three of this week's new releases used their opening day as a blueprint for the entire frame. Knowing, the new sci-fi flick starring Nicolas Cage, took the top spot with just about $25 million, slightly better than most expectations, and had the second-highest per-screen average of any movie in theaters. I have a suspicion that the film will do at least as well internationally as it should do here in the U.S. That could mean an international take of over $150 million. The new comedy I Love You, Man opened well, too, but in 600 fewer theaters. Still the $18 million debut is very similar the opening weekends for Paul Rudd's Role Models and Jason Segel's Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and both of those movies topped $60 million. The weekend's third big release was Duplicity, which earned $14 million, which isn't bad for a Clive Owen movie. For a Julia Roberts film, that's a little lower than average, but I can't imagine Universal is unhappy with its receipts based on the number of theaters (2,574). Of the new releases, though, this is the movie that has the least direct competition, so it could perform strongly over the next three or four weeks. This is probably the last time we'll mention Watchmen in terms of box office. This really was a one-day wonder. For the second weekend, the graphic novel adaptation has lost over 60% of its audience from the previous week. The opening weekend was over $55 million and 14 days later, it could only manage about $7 million. At this rate, the film won't even be in theaters for two months. The Top Five:
1 - Knowing - $24.8 million
2 - I Love You, Man - $18 million
3 - Duplicity - $14.4 million
4 - Witch Mountain - $13 million
5 - Watchmen - $6.7 million