Weekend Box-Office: September 2-4, 2011

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

The
Help don’t need no help…

Be honest…if we’d have asked
you, before the summer started, which film you believed would be
the 1st movie since INCEPTION to remain in the #1 spot for three
weekends in a row, how many would have predicted THE (F*CKIN’)
HELP? I mean….seriously!? I know I sure wouldn’t have!
That said, the film seems to have seriously touched many people,
as it is now barreling close to $120M for its overall gross since
it was released one month ago and is also getting some serious
“Oscar buzz” now. All that on a $25M budget, you say?
It’s a hit, boys and chicks!

Now even though it’s
technically a 4-day weekend (if you include Labor Day, which is on
Monday), we’re presenting the standard 3-day weekend figures
below. Most films maintained close to the same amount that they
made last weekend (for example, THE HELP only lost 2% of its
audience from last week, and RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES only
lost 12%), but that was mostly because of the super-low numbers
last weekend, due to that dang hurricane thingamajig!

With this week’s added
box-office dollars, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is now only $4M
off the 10th place spot for the overall
2011 box-office movies (right behind KUNG FU PANDA 2). THE
HELP has actually moved up to 18th place on that chart as
well….leapfrogging over THE GREEN LANTERN. Who knew!

The weekend’s 3 new films fared
decently but nothing to write their investment banker about. THE
DEBT was the surprising winner of the three new releases in 2nd
place with about $10M in receipts. The other 2 horror/thriller
films, APOLLO 18 and SHARK NIGHT 3D, were destroyed
by critics but placed themselves in 3rd and 4th place
respectively. The budgets for all 3 movies were unknown at the
time of this write-up. Actually, very little was known
about APOLLO 18 even before it was released! (including the
actors’ names)

The 3 films to get booted from
the top 10 in order to make place for the 3 new films included
CRAZY STUPID LOVE ($74M), FRIGHT NIGHT ($17M) and CONAN THE
BARBARIAN ($20M). The two latter films can be considered
“failures” although I still believe FRIGHT NIGHT would
have opened with at least $20M had it been released in late
October. I don’t get that one…

Next weekend sees the release a
handful of diverse films including the continuing demise of Adam
Sandler’s “successful” movie run with something they’re
calling BUCKY
LARSON: BORN TO BE A STAR starring such luminaries as
Stephen Dorff, Pauly Shore and Don Johnson! The film mainly stars
Nick Swardson, whom I enjoy most of the time, but his over-the-top
character in JUST GO WITH IT was amazingly unfunny, and this one
looks about the same.

We’re also getting the latest
“a virus will kill everyone on Earth” movie entitled CONTAGION,
which is directed by the soon-to-be-retiring Steven Soderbergh and
starring a ton of solid actors like Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne,
Kate Winslet, Jude Law and others. And finally, the film that our
very own Chris
Bumbray gave a 10/10, was also adored by the Arrow and Moreno
from our site, and seems to be gearing up to become the latest
“sports film” to touch hearts at the same time, entitled
WARRIOR
(lame title though). So do you think THE HELP will hold on for a
4th weekend in a row or will one of the 3 new movies take over the
#1 spot? VOTE
HERE!!!