A soft weekend at the box office featured uninspiring performances from two newcomers.
Behind winner “True Grit” ($15 million) and runner-up “Little Fockers” was new release “Season of the Witch” ($10.7 million). None of the promotional spots hinted at even a prayer of a strong box office debut from the Nicolas Cage film, and that pessimism indeed held up this weekend.
With “Tron: Legacy” ($9.8 million) and “Black Swan” ($8.4 million) landing in the top five, “Country Strong” was restricted to number six for its expansion. Though studio sources reportedly told Deadline the performance was on the “high end” of expectations, a $7.3 million weekend is nothing to celebrate (meaning that if $7.3 million did indeed top expectations, no one had any real faith in this movie).
To the film’s credit, by virtue of being in only 1424 theatres, it did rank second among wide releases for per-screen average, pulling a $5,126. But those hoping to claim that “Country Strong” could have ranked first or second overall had it been in 3000 theatres should remember that theatrical performance is rarely proportional–as 1424 theatres would cover most of the relevant markets, there would be diminishing returns for each theatre added to the mix.
There were no big developments on the platform front.
Weekend Top Ten:
1) True Grit – $15M ($110.4M)
2) Little Fockers – $13.8M ($124.0M)
3) Season of the Witch – $10.7M
4) Tron: Legacy – $9.8M ($147.9M)
5) Black Swan – $8.4M ($61.5M)
6) Country Strong – $7.3M ($7.4M)
7) The Fighter – $7M ($57.8M)
8) Yogi Bear – $6.8M ($75.6M)
9) Tangled – $5.2M ($175.9M)
10) Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – $4.8M ($94.7M)