Box Office: Third Week’s A Charm For ‘True Grit’

It’s very rare for a film to hit the number one spot at the box office several weeks after its release, but that is exactly what the Coen Brothers’ True Grit accomplished this weekend. The film finally shook the monkey (Little Fockers) off its back for a clear shot at the number one slot.

Grit made about $15 M over the weekend, and because it was a god-awful weekend at the box office, that was good enough for a first place finish.  Business was down almost 30% from last weekend. Entertainment Weekly reports that it could be the worst January weekend since 2000!

The good news is that the Coen Brothers just surpassed the $100M milestone for the very first time.  This is the first film they have made that has made it to into the club, so to speak.  Good for them. True Grit will surely continue to succeed in theaters, particularly if the film receives any Oscar nominations.

The film also became the fifth highest grossing Western of all time.  That seems surprising, but the film is only bested by Dances With Wolves, City Slickers, Blazing Saddles, and Wild Wild West.  Guess there is a rather loose interpretation of what is considered a Western.

Next up was Little Fockers, which was the winner the last two weekends. It added $13.7 M to its take, for a three week total of  $123 M (compared to True Grit’s $110 M total for the same time frame).  Although it has not performed as well as the other Focker movies, this installment has made back its $100M budget.

Season of the Witch was somewhat of a surprise, coming in at number three with $10.7 M.  The film was not widely screened for critics, and has earned the prestigious rating of 4% positive on Rotten Tomatoes (at the time of this writing) with 75 reviews up on the site. That is quite impressive this early in the year.

By God if Tron: Legacy doesn’t continue to inch toward it’s purported budget of $170 M.  In its fourth week in release, the film made $9.8 M, and has a cumulative of $147.9 M.  Not too bad for a film that a lot of folks thought would be a flat-out flop.

Black Swan put up some pretty impressive numbers against the heavy hitters, considering it is only playing on about 1600 screens.  It came in at number five with $8.3 M.  The film has managed to make about $61M to date, impressive because it has never truly opened wide.

The Gwyneth Paltrow booze-fest Country Strong came in just outside the top five with $7.3 M.  It played on about 1400 screens. Its modest $15 M budget should guarantee that it will be profitable. The Fighter, The King’s Speech, and Yogi Bear came in very closely behind it. The King’s Speech enjoyed the  best per/screen average of the weekend ($8,985).