Expendables Holds Off Five Newcomers at the Box Office

It was a relatively weak run at the box office where last week’s #1 film, The Expendables, dropped 53% to $16.5 million but remained in the top spot despite the opening of five new films. All of the new openers had decent openings considering their budgets but none broke out to be hits.

Coming in second was Vampires Suck, which sits amongst the worst reviewed movies of all-time but still made $12.2 million and now sits at $18.5 million since coming out on Wednesday. The parody movie which follows in the line of horrible ones from the same writer/director duo as Disaster Movie, Meet The Spartans, Epic Movie, and Date Movie, once again drew in a crowd that justified the film considering it cost just $20 million to make.

Another low budget movie was able to bring in over half its budget in the opening weekend as Lottery Ticket opened to $11.1 million. Generally poor reviews didn’t stop it from doing well in large part to the cast and heavy marketing. The comedy tapped into a demographic that has been absent films targeted towards it as of late.

Piranha 3D was the new offering getting the most positive buzz as it surprising rolled up good reviews (at 81% on Rotten Tomatoes) though I didn’t quite understand why so many were overly enthusiastic about it (my review). Considering that, and the higher ticket prices for 3D, it is probably seen as somewhat of a disappointment by the studio that it only took in $10 million. With a budget of $24 million it is on its way to making that back but it would seem to have had the potential to do better. It was a tough film to market though with many probably dismissing it outright for being too over-the-top.

With just over $8 million for each the final two new films, Nanny McPhee Returns and The Switch, did marginal levels of business but are in decent shape. Nanny McPhee had already released overseas and made $62 million so its domestic take is just gravy for the $35 million budgeted sequel. For the Jason Bateman-Jennifer Aniston film The Switch it was made for just around $16 million and it did well enough considering it was a tough sell to market a deceptive insemination comedy.

Though we’ve arrived at one of the weakest times of the time for new releases there is an interesting one to follow next week. Avatar: Special Edition hits theaters for a limited run in 3D and IMAX with nine minutes of new footage.