Box Office - Upon Further Review, 'Takers' Takes It

This really was a big news item over the weekend, and it just got a little bigger. Turns out that after the official tally of ticket sales, Takers claimed the top spot at the box office, narrowly defeating - but beating all the same - The Last Exorcism, a film with a huge advantage in marketing dollars, genre familiarity, and theaters. Even though The Last Exorcism received very strong praise and was in 25% more theaters, it couldn't hold up to the onslaught of Paul Walker, T.I., Chris Brown, and Hayden Christensen: Takers vaulted to number one, overcoming a $2 million Friday night deficit, earning $20.5 million over the three-day stanza. Exorcism, on the other hand, got tired as the weekend went on. It dropped a quarter of its crowd on Saturday and then almost half of what was left on Saturday when Sunday rolled around. And while Takers did sink on Sunday, the overwhelming majority of movies do. It still held a stronger percentage on Sunday than the movie expected to run away with the weekend, and actually showed up stronger on Saturday than Friday. However, when you peel back the numbers a bit, Exorcism is still the bigger success. Sure, Takers is a surprise, and it's basically in the black at this point, but The Last Exorcism has already made ten times its production budget, meaning those ad costs and everything are a little easier to stare down moving forward. The big headline, I guess, is that a weekend at the end of August actually mattered for the first time in a long, long time. Will Labor Day show any signs of life? That's usually a real dead zone.

Comments

[nicksoapdish]

is that female cop on the right hayden christensen?

[Nelson]

Could Machete revive labor day?

[Colin]

Yes and maybe. It's actually the biggest Labor Day in years, so between that and the Barrymore movie, there ought to be decent money for the newbies, plus a little carryover cash for Exorcism and the female cop pictured above.