Tuesday Morning Box Office Report: Clooney Cuts Up Machete
You never really know how a new George Clooney movie is going to do nowadays, especially since most of his roles over the past few years haven’t been particularly mainstream, but audiences definitely seemed to respond to the idea of him being a suave secret agent over the long weekend. The American had a decent $16 million opening, beating out Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, which just barely claimed second place over Takers. The Last Exorcism dropped a painful 64% in its second week leaving it at the #4 position, followed by the Drew Barrymore / Justin Long rom-com Going the Distance, which had a borderline disastrous $8.6 million opening. Meanwhile Christopher Nolan’s Inception, now in its eighth weekend, is still in the top 10, which says a lot about how disposable the rest of the recent theatrical releases have been.
1. The American — $16.4M
2. Machete — $14M
3. Takers — $13.5M
4. The Last Exorcism — $8.78M
5. Going the Distance — $8.61M
6. The Expendables — $8.5M
7. The Other Guys — $6.65M
8. Eat Pray Love — $6.25M
9. Inception — $5.85M
10. Nanny McPhee Returns — $4.67M
Comments (14)
Very, very happy for The American. It’s pretty cool that it managed to make number one, I mean i’ve seen barely any marketing for it (although Clooney’s obviously a huge factor). But yeah, very cool to see a filmmaker like Anton Corbjn get this much attention.
Posted by Drew on September 7th, 2010why did the Weinsteins put out Machete on one of the worst weekends of the year for movies? It’s like they wanted Grindhouse to fail by putting out on Easter and now Machete for Labor day?
Posted by Niklas on September 7th, 2010Machete is hardly a failure. Rodriguez makes films on the cheap, so they are always profitable. With its comic-violence, nudity and full on language Machete was hardly every going to be an Avatar or Toy Story mega-blockbuster
Posted by Kurt on September 7th, 2010Hey, it did better than Grindhouse… and that had Tarantino’s name on it.
Posted by Sean on September 7th, 2010I think Machete will get good word of mouth. I did not see a disappointed face leaving Machete; The American on the other hand had a couple of walk outs and some yawners.
Posted by KeithTalent on September 7th, 2010The reason why Machete did better than Grindhouse was a clear sell on the concept, and 20th century Fox behind its release instead of THE WEISTEIN COMPANY, who have yet really to launch any big multiplex-picture (their biggest success is probably INGLORIOUS BASTERDS) in their 5 year lifespan…
Posted by Kurt on September 7th, 2010Did you guys record a new Game Junk?
Posted by rjdelight on September 7th, 2010With any luck Game Junk will be coming by the end of the week.
Posted by Sean on September 7th, 2010Isn’t $16 million a pretty low take for the number one movie? Seems like a decent amount for the top film of the week is usually twice that or more, especially when it’s opening.
Posted by Brendan on September 7th, 2010Seems to be generally slow on labour day weekend, so that total is decent for the time of year. Mojo said that was the 4th highest Labour Day weekend:
“As quiet as The American may seem, it had the fourth-highest grossing Labor Day launch ever.”
I was surprised as well, but looking back at prior years, the films historically coming out on this weekend were not huge draws.
Posted by KeithTalent on September 7th, 2010Labor Day is generally considered the last summer weekend so most theatres are pretty dead since people want to be out and about on their last few days of freedom.
Posted by Matt Gamble on September 7th, 2010The theatre is my out and about xP
Posted by Drew on September 8th, 2010I have a friend on a campaign to get a good looking Latino to be a movie star in Hollywood and I couldn’t agree more. I like Danny Trejo but come on, if there was a George Clooney looking dude in “Machete” it would have easily passed “The American”. Funny business.
Posted by Seth Hymes on September 8th, 2010I thought that was supposed to be Antonio Banderas? Whatever happened to that guy, did Melanie Griffith de-Latino him?
Posted by KeithTalent on September 8th, 2010Leave a Reply