The Town Wins Active Box Office Weekend

After a few weeks with slumping returns the box office heated up with the opening of four films that all saw their own level of success. Easy A was expected to win the weekend and it still did really well but The Town came out on top, while Devil and Alpha and Omega turned in good results considering they cost little to make.

With The Town director Ben Affleck not only has a critical winner with the potential for awards consideration on his hands but also a box office hit. The movie made $23.8 million which puts it in similar range of what The Departed opened with. Whether it takes a similar trajectory and eventually crosses $100 million remains to be seen but is possible. Affleck’s directorial debut, the fantastic Gone Baby Gone, opened to just $5.5 million. The heavy marketing really paid off and it appears word of mouth helped it open so strongly.

In second place it was the comedy Easy A which made $18.2 million. It didn’t finish first, which tracking seemed to indicate it would, but considering it only cost $8 million to make this is a huge winner. Though the marketing made it look like a traditional teen comedy reviews were mostly positive. It is hard to fault the marketing though considering awareness was high and it did so well, it just seemed to have the potential to do even better.

Ads for Devil included the mention of M. Night Shyamalan, inciting boos at Comic-Con and in theaters during the preview. Though he didn’t write or direct the movie (it was simply his idea) his name now carries a stigma. Despite that the movie made a solid $12.5 million which is actually impressive for any movie that has no real recognizable stars and was relatively cheap to make.

The final new film was the animated kids movie Alpha and Omega which drew $9.2 million. Holdovers saw Resident Evil: Afterlife fall a heavy but expected 62% to $10.1 million while Inception crossed the $750 million mark in worldwide gross.