Box Office Update 9/8-9/10: The Covenant Makes History, Sort Of

The Covenant takes its place in history. It is the first time the number one grossing film took in less than $10 million in three years. It took in a whopping $8.8 million over the weekend, the lowest sum since the David Spade flick, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, took in $6.7 million. Go back two more years and you will find a weekend that sold even fewer overall tickets, the weekend in the aftermath of 9/11. As for the quality of the movie? Well, let's just say that it takes a lot of effort to be this poor.

Two other new releases entered the top ten this week. The first being the second place finisher, Hollywoodland. This is a film that I thought would have performed stronger than its $5.9 million take. It is an interesting look into the as yet unsolved mystery surrounding the apparent suicide of television's first Superman, George Reeves. Thw other entry is the number four film, The Protector. Despite the hatchet job by the Weinstein Company, slicing a half hour from the runtime, it is still an adrenaline inducing action flick. There are some fantastic fights, and Tony Jaa is an amazing talent.

Only one film had any amount of success, among the returnees. That one film is The Illusionist, a movie that should have been better than it is. It fell only one spot, two number 6, with a drop in revenue of 27.1%. At the other end of the scale, The Wicker Man fared the worst, dropping 5 spots and 57.7%.

Three films dropped from the list this week: World Trade Center (11), Step Up (12), and Accepted (13).

This Week	Last Week	Title	Wknd Gross	Overall	Week in release
1	N	The Covenant	$8,852,458	$8,852,458	1
2	N	Hollywoodland	$5,926,177	$5,926,177	1
3	1	Invincible	$5,630,126	$45,500,634	3
4	N	The Protector	$5,034,180	$5,034,180	1
5	2	Crank	$4,904,308	$19,962,812	2
6	5	The Illusionist	$4,514,306	$17,963,845	4
7	4	Little Miss Sunshine	$4,273,545	$41,494,873	7
8	3	The Wicker Man	$4,062,271	$17,433,396	2
9	6	Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby	$3,012,596	$142,193,465	6
10	7	Barnyard	$2,715,092	$67,014,342	6

Box Office Predictions Recap
Another lousy week. I pegged the number 1 and 9 films, but, once again, my box office predictions were bad. I knew it was going to be a slow weekend, but this slow?

Actual	Prediction	Title	Wknd Gross	Prediction
1	1	The Covenant	$8,852,458	$9.5 million
3	2	Invincible	$5,630,126	$7.5 million
6	3	The Illusionist	$4,514,306	$7 million
2	4	Hollywoodland	$5,926,177	$6.5 million
7	5	Little Miss Sunshine	$4,273,545	$6 million
5	6	Crank	$4,904,308	$5.5 million
4	7	The Protector	$5,034,180	$4 million
10	8	Barnyard	$2,715,092	$3.5 million
9	9	Talladega Nights	$3,012,596	$3 million
11	10	World Trade Center	$2,565,386	$2 million

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