TAKERS TAKES FIRST

Fewer moviegoers turned up at theaters on Sunday than the studios had expected — and far fewer decided to take in The Last Exorcism. While the movie opened strongly on Friday, well ahead of the pack, it lost steam on Saturday, and by the time Sunday’s returns were counted, it had fallen to second place with $20.4 million, about $1 million less than Lionsgate had anticipated. It was edged out by Sony/Screen Gems’s heist drama Takers, which earned $20.5 million. Reopening Pandora’s box (office) with the release of Avatar: Special Edition proved elusive, however, as the 20th Century Fox revenue champ earned just $4 million and was unable to crack the top ten. While some analysts had predicted that the film could earn as much as $20 million, the mere fact that it played in only 812 theaters (all of them 3D or IMAX) made such a target unobtainable. Nevertheless, it averaged about $5,000 per theater, behind only the two leaders on a per-theater basis. Its domestic gross to date now stands at $753.77 million. Overall, the box office was down 13.4 percent from the comparable week a year ago when The Final Destination 3D opened with $27.41 million.

The top ten films over the weekend, according to final figures compiled by Box Office Mojo (figures in parentheses represent total gross to date):
1. Takers, Sony, $20,512,304, (New); 2. The Last Exorcism, Lionsgate, $20,366,613, (New); 3. The Expendables, Lionsgate, $9,527,937, 3 Wks. ($82,040,183); 4. Eat Pray Love, Sony, $6,815,555, 3 Wks. ($60,531,326); 5. The Other Guys, Sony, $6,285,712, 4 Wks. ($99,018,172); 6. Vampires Suck, 20th Century Fox, $5,221,780, 2 Wks. ($27,834,256); 7. Inception, Warner Bros., $4,876,356, 7 Wks. ($270,519,920); 8. Nanny McPhee Returns, Universal, $4,714,215, 2 Wks. ($16,991,285); 9. The Switch, Miramax, $4,583,481, 2 Wks, ($14,267,793); 10. Piranha 3D, Weinstein Co./Miramax/Dimension, $4,302,878, 2 Wks. ($18,266,889).