Showing incredible longevity, The Help was the most popular film in North America for the third weekend in a row beating out a trio of new releases to top the long Friday-to-Monday Labor Day holiday frame. The spy drama The Debt debuted to impressive results in second place while the critically-panned thrillers Apollo 18 and Shark Night 3D followed with modest openings. Older adults came out to multiplexes in larger numbers than teens as overall ticket sales were about even with the holiday from the past two years.
Still pulling in ticket buyers in its fourth weekend, The Help led the way with an estimated $19M over the long four-day span with the Friday-to-Sunday portion seeing a slight uptick from last weekend. The Mississippi-set drama became the first film since Inception to rank number one for three weekends. Averaging a strong $6,683 over four days, the Disney release boosted its stellar cume to $123.4M on its way to what should be at least $160M. The Help continues to benefit from solid buzz and audience expansion reaching people now who had no interest on opening weekend. It has now surpassed Green Lantern and is on course to outgross bigger summer action films like X-Men: First Class and Super 8.
Leading the way among new titles was the older-skewing espionage thriller The Debt which bowed to an estimated $12.6M over the Friday-to-Monday period. The Focus release averaged a healthy $6,873 from only 1,826 locations as it played to a more sophisticated adult crowd. Reviews were good for the Helen Mirren film and with its Wednesday start the six-day gross was $14.5M. The performance was especially impressive given how well The Help (with 1,000 extra theaters) continues to do with adult women and the fact that films opening on Labor Day weekend rarely average more than $6,000 over four days. A healthy run ahead for The Debt could result.
There was a tight race among the frame’s two other new releases for the bronze medal. The outer space thriller Apollo 18 claimed a slim lead over with an estimated $10.7M debut from a very wide 3,328 theaters resulting in an awful $3,215 four-day average. The Weinstein Co. release tried to intrigue sci-fi audiences with its found-footage format but few turned out. Those that did rejected what they saw as the CinemaScore grade came in as a dismal D. Grosses will evaporate quickly. Luckily for the distributor, Apollo carried a tiny $5M production budget.
Opening behind in fourth place was the fourth horror film in as many weeks, Shark Night 3D with an estimated $10.3M. Released by Relativity Media, the PG-13 pic averaged a weak $3,671 from 2,806 despite including 3D surcharges. It was the third fright flick in a row that failed to break double digit millions on its Friday-to-Sunday opening weekend following the $8.5M of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and the $7.7M of Fright Night which was in 3D. Shark scared up $8.4M over three days. Produced for roughly $25M, Shark Night scored a disappointing C grade from CinemaScore. Females made up 52% of the audience, 57% was under 25, and a very high 56% was Latino. Although there were 300+ runs in 2D, Shark Night truly pushed the extra dimensional thrills as a very high 86% of the sales came from 3D screens.
Fox’s summer hit Rise of the Planet of the Apes collected an estimated $10.3M raising the impressive sum to $162.5M. The Zoe Saldana revenge thriller Colombiana dropped a reasonable amount in its second weekend to an estimated $9.4M pushing the 11 day total to $24M for Sony.
With a four-day take that matched its three-day debut, the raunchy comedy Our Idiot Brother from The Weinstein Co. grossed an estimated $7M. The Paul Rudd pic has taken in a modest $17.3M in 11 days. The distributor’s Spy Kids: All the Time in the World collected an estimated $6.6M in its third round boosting the total to $31M.
Suffering the largest decline in the top ten was the horror entry Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark which fell to an estimated $6.1M over four days. FilmDistrict has scared up $17.6M to date and the three-day decline was 40%. The Smurfs took in an estimated $5.6M for a mighty $133.6M domestic haul. The Sony smash continues to shine overseas with its international total rising to $295.8M and the global gross hitting a sturdy $428M.
With the summer movie season just about over, sequels pulled in the most business dominating the marketplace. The top five summer films were: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($375.5M), Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($350.5M), The Hangover Part II ($254.3M), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ($240.5M), and Fast Five ($209.8M) which opened at the end of April but truly kicked off the busy moviegoing season. The top non-sequels were – Thor ($181M), Captain America ($172.1M), and Bridesmaids ($168.5M) which was one of the biggest surprise smashes of the season. The Help may eventually reach this same vicinity.
The top ten films grossed an estimated $97.6M which was up 5% from last year’s four-day holiday when The American opened in the top spot with $16.7M; and up 1% from 2009’s holiday when The Final Destination stayed at number one with $15.3M.
Written by Gitesh Pandya, Box Office Guru!
