It’s hard to speculate how it might have done against real competition, but given an entire weekend to itself, with no other major studio films opening in wide release, the Steve Carell/Tina Fey comedy Date Night bowed in first place in $27.1 million. Hopefully, the robust figure promises another, better pairing of the NBC Thursday night comedy icons, and not another overly busy, star-choked adventure from the director of the Night At The Museum movies or some such garbage. Still, the robust number was only just enough to beat out Clash Of The Titans, which fell by 56% in its second week, collecting $26.9 million as it pays down a gargantuan $125 million budget. Next week, it’ll swap places with third-place finisher How To Train Your Dragon, which dropped only 12.6% from its previous week, coasting along on good word of mouth and a lack of other options for family films. It made $25.4 million in its third week.
In limited release, the Doors documentary When You’re Strange performed well with $8,100 per screen on eight screens, an average similar to the Aussie noir The Square, which only opened on two screens. The week’s strong per-screen performance, however, was the $11,400 collected by Maren Ade’s superb Everyone Else, a figure that will hopefully encourage bookings as it works its way through the arthouse circuit.
For more detailed numbers, visit Box Office Mojo.