It was a weekend that soaked the sweatsuits of every box office watcher in America: Which mediocre new movie would do the least disappointing business and back its way into the #1 spot? Would it be the barely-screened-for-critics Jennifer Lawrence horror movie The House On The End Of The Street? Or End Of Watch, the latest edgy LAPD thriller from the man behind Training Day, Street Kings, Harsh Times, and many others just like it? Or would Clint Eastwood recover from his chair-hating Republican National Convention speech and convince people to reconcile with their theater seats? As of this morning, the results are Bush v. Gore inconclusive, as estimates were not enough to determine the pecking order. For now, The House On The End Of The Street and End Of Watch are tied for #1 with $13 million, a total that seems less pitiful when you consider that it exceeds the production budget in both cases. That left the Eastwood vehicle Trouble With The Curve in third with $12.7 million, a margin thin enough to where it could leapfrog the other two and take the throne, which will again present problems on account of a throne being a type of chair. The week did have one clear loser, however, in Dredd, which took just $6.3 million for sixth place, though it stands to do better in territories like the U.K., where the Judge Dredd character is better known. In its second week, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master added 783 screens (from five the week earlier) and still performed well on per screen average ($6,345), slipping just behind Dredd with $6.06 million, despite being in less than a third as many theaters.
In limited release, the Logan Lerman-Emma Watson film The Perks Of Being A Wallflower was an absolute bonanza, riding mostly positive reviews to a huge per screen average of $61,000 on four screens. The ACT UP documentary How To Survive A Plague, maybe the best-reviewed movie of the week, struggled a little with $7,000 per screen on four screens.
For more detailed numbers, visit Box Office Mojo.