Weekend Box-Office: September 23-25, 2011

The
Lion is still the King, baby…

Despite 4 new "big
ticket" movies hitting theaters this past weekend, it was
those crazy 3D animated Disney lions that managed to hang on to
the #1 spot for the second weekend in a row, as THE LION KING
re-release has now generated $62M during the first 10 days of
release. Originally, Disney had announced it as a LIMITED
2-week release, but needless to say, now that they’re bringing in
the big cheese ($$$), they’ve decided to "extend" the
release a little further. Not sure for how much longer, but it’s
to note that the film will be getting its "Diamond
Edition" Blu-Ray release on October 4th.

THE LION KING’s great success aside, it’s
interesting to see how the 4 other new releases fared during their
1st week in the marketplace. Unfortunately for fans of action
films, the Statham-Owen-DeNiro combo, THE KILLER ELITE, performed
the worst of the bunch with a 5th place finish and only $10M in
receipts. On the "good news" side for action flicks,
Twilight heartthrob Taylor Lautner’s attempt at piercing that
genre with ABDUCTION, also didn’t perform too well, as it
generated only $11M and a 4th place showing. The film wasn’t
screened to critics in advance, and ultimately ended up with only 3%
positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. What happened to director
John Singleton? From BOYZ IN THE HOOD to this dreck? Yeesh!

And from the company that brought you the
"feel good" BLIND SIDE back in 2009, DOLPHIN TALE
performed quite well in its first weekend of release, falling only
half a million dollars below MONEYBALL in 3rd place, although that
might change once the "actual figures" are reported on
Monday (remember that Sunday figures are just
"estimates" for now). Finally, it was Brad Pitt’s
MONEYBALL that gave THE LION KING the most competition, as it
finished only $1.5M below the Disney classic in 2nd place. Out of
the 4 new releases, KILLER ELITE cost the most to make at $70M,
followed by MONEYBALL with a $50M budget, and then DOLPHIN TALE
and ABDUCTION at approximately $35M each.

As 4 new films were introduced to the box-office
charts, 4 others dropped out of the top 10 including THE DEBT
($29M), RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES ($174M), WARRIOR ($12M) and
COLOMBIANA ($35M). It’s sad to see how few dollars WARRIOR
generated, despite its superior
reviews. A similar refrain can be uttered for DRIVE, which
dropped to 7th place in its second weekend of release, as it lost
50% of its audience from last weekend. Thankfully for both films,
their budgets were only $25M for WARRIOR and $15M for DRIVE. On
the "really great news" front, the Sarah Jessica
Parker-starring I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT dropped to 10th place
in only its second week of release. The film has only made $8M in
two weeks.

Next weekend sees the release of 4 more new movies
vying for the top spot including the "newly married couple du
jour" Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz starring in the thriller DREAM
HOUSE, Anna Faris giving the "hot bimbo funny
blonde" character another shot in WHAT’S
YOUR NUMBER co-starring Captain America, as well as an
inspirational movie called COURAGEOUS
and let’s not forget…our pick of the week entitled 50/50,
a dramedy based loosely on the real life cancer diagnosis of one
of Seth Rogen’s good buddies (who ended up writing the screenplay)
Our man Chris Bumbray caught it at the Toronto Film Festival and
raved all about it HERE.
So which film do you think will finish in the #1 spot next
weekend? VOTE
HERE!!!