Box Office - Jason and the Also-Rans

It looks like those Jason Voorhees fans got most of their curiosities satisfied early. Even though Friday the 13th opened with a whopping $19.3 million on Friday, the film struggled the rest of the weekend, particularly on Sunday. Still, a $42 million three-day total isn't bad at all, however, $50 million over the four-day President's Day weekend seems hard to believe.

While Jason would've won the weekend with a much less robust Friday, two other films played pretty competitively - last week's top two finishers, He's Just Not That Into You and Taken . Taken continues to amaze me. Without real star power, the Liam Neeson revenge flick has lost 18% of its audience from the first to the second weekends and an absurd 6% in its third stanza. The average drop is somewhere between 25 - 35% on the second weekend, and a little less than that the next. Box Office Mojo reports that the weekend's other new releases, Confessions of a Shopaholic and The International couldn't quite perform up to their expectations, collecting $15 and $10 million respectively.

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Box Office - 'Friday the 13th' Owns Friday the 13th

Nearly doubling its project Friday box office, Friday the 13th left no doubt as to what movie is the preferred choice over the four-day weekend. Earning $19 million in one day, according to Box Office Mojo estimates, means a likely $50 million-plus debut, which in turn means that Jason Voorhees might finally join the century club.

Friday the 13th earned about four times as much as anything else, and its big opening day was certainly a surprise. More than likely, it's one of those movie that will have a huge first day and taper off after that; I think it's unlikely that the numbers would go up from $19 million. Still, the other new releases felt the sting, with Confessions of a Shopaholic and The International earning just over four and just under three million each. Neither film cracked the top three and The International may not make it into the top five this weekend, thanks to strong performances by He's Just Not That Into You ($5 million) and Taken ($4.67 million).

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Movie Review - 'The International'

The International Starring Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, and Armin Mueller-Stahl Directed by Tom Tykwer Rated R

With all the Wall Street greed in the news, you'd think The International was taking its lead from current events. Not exactly. The film was shot almost a year-and-a-half ago, before this economic Titanic charted its course, and the script is at least six years old. But director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) doesn't have to work very hard to get you to choose sides because of the banking crisis, which is a plus once the movie starts. The problem is whether or not people want to escape their real world for two hours to see evil bankers. Interpol agent Louis Sallinger (Clive Owen) has been working with the Manhattan District Attorney's office, and in particular ADA Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts), on an investigation of global consequence. Sallinger believes one of the world's largest banks is killing opponents of its lending practices. But why? It has to do with buying cheap weapons from China and giving them to third world countries. How can the bank make money out of this? That's not the goal, we learn. Instead, the bank is assuring debtors. "Control the debt and you control everything," an insider tells Sallinger and Whitmore. And it's very tough to track where the money goes if there's not a trail of money to follow. The information alone isn't enough to win the day for Interpol. Because most of the first world countries do enormous amounts of business with the bank, too, protecting it protects their own interests, so bringing down The Internatioal Bank of Business and Credit means, in essence, bringing down the governments of the world.

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Fearless Forecast - Jason Kills 'em All

Almost instinctively, I'm saying that Friday the 13th is going to dominate the weekend box office. And then I think about it, and I think it's going to be even more dominating..er...ing. You see, it's not just a reboot of one of those classic franchises, one that will continue to convert young fans, but it's also the only movie aimed at young moviegoers right now, so they ought to respond with their always frivolous spending.

That's not to say Confessions of a Shopaholic won't make money. It'll do fine, and it could even fare surprisingly well if a lot of single women band together on Valentine's Day weekend and see it in large groups. But there's a big audience split between this film and He's Just Not That Into You, and that, couple with the clear advantage Friday the 13th has in theater numbers, will keep Shopaholic from going toe-to- toe with Jason. I once held out hope that The International could be a box office hit. It seems smarter than the other two films, it's got a great cast, and it's timely. Perhaps it's too timely, though. The action thriller about corrupt banks may hit too close to home, and that might help explain why Sony is only releasing this in 2,300 theaters.

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Watch the First Five Minutes of 'The International'

It's been a while since we've seen Clive Owen in anything, but he returns to theaters this weekend in The International, a new political thrilla about big money and bigger villains.

Owen plays an Interpol agent and Naomi Watts portrays a Manhattan Assistant D.A. who are working to bring one of the world's largest banks to justice after they uncover plenty of illegal activities involving the bank and where its money goes. Oh yeah, and for the sake of an efficient back story, Clive and Naomi used to date or something. Movie Web has the first five minutes of the film, and I hope that it sets the tone for the rest of The International.

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