Other Crap

Weekend Box Office Results for September 12–14, 2008

It was a surprisingly good weekend. In general, the "something for everyone" strategy was effective, as all four new films exceeded expectations and the weekend was 31% above last year's comp. And that despite the fact that it followed one of the worst weekends in history! That represented the only double-digit lift over last year in the last eleven weeks, except for the record-setting weekend when Batman opened.

The Coens were the big winners. Burn After Reading performed almost 50% better than expected, enough to take the weekend from Tyler Perry and the DeNiro/Pacino combo. (Experts thought Burn would finish third.)

The week's only loser among the wide releases was Bangkok Dangerous, which dropped 70% from last week.

The big loser of the week was the under-promoted Proud American, which shattered the two major all-time records for the worst opening ever (600 or more theaters): lowest total gross, and lowest gross per theater. (Complete list.)