UPDATED!!! The Last Exorcism Fights Off The Box Office Competition As Takers Almost Takes #1

August 31, 2010 | by The Infamous Billy The Kidd |

UPDATE: There is a new #1 in town, as, once all of the receipts were tallied, and every last penny was counted, TAKERS was declared the winner; it was really that close. TAKERS was able to pull in exactly $20,512,304 after its take on Sunday, as THE LAST EXORCISM’s estimate was a little high, as its final opening was $20,366,613 – with a difference of only $145,691 separating them for the top spot. That’s right… TAKERS is the #1 movie in America. How many people saw that one coming?

The box office race may be too close to call right now with the exact figures not released until Monday, but, according to the estimates, it appears that there will be a new #1 movie, with THE LAST EXORCISM claiming the top spot in a photo finish, besting TAKERS by a mere few hundred thousand bucks.

THE LAST EXORCISM was proof as usual that audiences will still come out for a horror movie, and if it’s decent, that only helps business. EXORCISM was fairly well-received (The Kidd hated the ending), and that probably helped carry it to $$21.3 million. After seeing the big opening for A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET earlier this year, a pretty strong opening for THE LAST EXORCISM means that we should expect far above-average openings for PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 and SAW 3D in October with their increased name recognition.

The bigger surprise was how close TAKERS came to landing at #1, just falling short with $21 million for a close 2nd place finish. Apparently the presence of T.I. for the hip-hop/rap audience was enough to overcome the fact that Chris Brown was in the movie, but I’m still not sure who made up for Hayden Christensen being involved or Matt Dillon for that matter, as it’s been quite some time it seems since he’s been in anything of any value. TAKERS was pretty well slammed by anyone who saw it heading into its opening, and The Kidd was expecting something along the $6.5 million the similar-looking ARMORED took in last year. TAKERS far surpassed those expectations and nearly landed the label “#1 movie in America.” Whew… that was a close one.

THE EXPENDABLES finally fell from the top rank, landing at #3 with $9.5 million. The action film saw a significant drop of 44% of its audience, but don’t expect sequel talk to slow, as its receipts this weekend pushed it to $82 million domestically, well within reach of the $100 million benchmark that it should hit within the next couple of weeks.

People wisened up to the sucktitude of VAMPIRES SUCK, but not nearly as many as you might have hoped, as the spoof remained in the top 10, banking $5.3 million for 6th place. And, if the news couldn’t have gotten any worse, that means VAMPIRES SUCK has made $27.9 million, more than the $26.1 million SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD has made since its release as it fell out of the top 10.

**sigh**

Also, for those of you curious as to how AVATAR did in its re-release, it managed to pull in $4 million from people who just can’t get enough of watching the Na’vi live on Pandora in IMAX. That wasn’t good enough to crack the top 10, but a 12th place finish for a movie that’s already been on DVD for a few months is a pretty significant feat. The fact that James Cameron is probably just going to use that 4 million bucks to wipe his ass is also a significant feat.

The Kidd absolutely nailed the top spot of the box office, hitting the dollar amount nearly exactly, as THE LAST EXORCISM looked like it would draw. However, I couldn’t have been more wrong about TAKERS, so batting .500 for the week will have to do. This week sees 3 new releases on the horizon for the Labor Day weekend – George Clooney’s THE AMERICAN, the GRINDHOUSE-inspired MACHETE, and the Justin Long/Drew Barrymore long distance romantic comedy GOING THE DISTANCE. The weak performance of THE SWITCH recently would normally force The Kidd to take pause on picking GOING THE DISTANCE to cross the finish line at #1… but I’m going to do so anyway. The film seems to have the most mass appeal of all the contenders this week, and I would expect something around $18 million might be good enough to take the crown. The second life GRINDHOUSE has received on DVD and cable should have more people knowing what MACHETE is, but unfortunately I don’t see a wave of people outside of the fans and the internet community lining up for it. $13 million tops could get it as high as #3. And THE AMERICAN will see a Wednesday release, so, if anyone really wants to come out for this movie, they’ll be seeing it then, but The Kidd isn’t predicting much from this Clooney film. $6 million and a spot towards the bottom half of the top 10 seems likely.

Here’s the full top 10 from this weekend’s box office: