Expendables best Julia
Call it the Magnificent Nine (or Eleven, if you count the micro-cameos by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis); the Stallone mega-star-loaded action flick, The Expendables, sat alone atop of the box office this past weekend, hauling in a tidy $34.8 million in domestic box office receipts. The film, which has yet to hit internationally, fell short of the hoped-for opening of $40 million plus, but the flick was still light years ahead of the competition.
The closest behind the boys was a flick for the gals; Julia Roberts’ Eat Pray Love took in $23.1 million over the weekend and has yet to debut overseas. That’s not bad for a film that cost around $60 million to make. The Will Ferrall action-comedy The Other Guys brought up a distant third with $17.4 million and has a domestic haul of nearly $70 million to date against a production budget of $100 million. Yet considering the film hasn’t debuted internationally, that could improve.
Inception came in fourth with $11.2 million in its fifth week. It’s take so far is around $250 million domestically plus $315 million in foreign markets for a total take to date of $565 million. That’s $400 million or so in profit after production costs.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World debuted in fifth place and managed $10.6 million only; against its $60 million budget, that’s bad news. Foreign markets only added an additional million, which does not bode well for the graphic novel-inspired Michael Cera film. Nothing else came close to topping $10.0 million.
One bright now about a film currently much further down the list; with a global take of $940.5 million to date, Toy Story 3 has now displaced Shrek 2 as the top-grossing animated feature of all time. Where to next? Why, to infinity and beyond, of course! Looks like cutting that scene where Buzz Lightyear tried on prom dresses was a good call after all! That should be left to teen girls, guys!
This coming weekend, Nanny McPhee Returns should be the best of the new crop, though Vampires Suck and The Switch both have a shot not to totally stink. The same might not be said for the car-wreck-in-3D flick, Piranha 3D.
After that, though, movie-going gets grim until maybe mid-October, when I personally am looking forward to Paranormal Activity 2.