Nicolas Cage

Nicolas Cage

True Grit topped the US/Canada box-office chart for the fifth straight day on Friday, Jan. 7, grossing $4.45m according to studio estimates found at Box Office Mojo. Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, and Josh Brolinstar in Joel Coen and Ethan Coen's acclaimed Western. True Grit nearly reached the $100m milestone, cuming at $99.88m.
At no. 2, Paul Weitz's Little Fockers brought in $4.24m. The Universal comedy stars Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman, Teri Polo, Blythe Danner, and Jessica Alba.
Much has been made of the fact that True Grit beat Little Fockers on Friday (and all week long, for that matter). But on Friday, the gap between the two films was a mere $200k. As I mentioned in my last box-office post, in the past two weeks Little Fockers was up (Friday-to-Saturday) 194% and 56%, versusTrue Grit's 118% and 20%. If that happens again, Little Fockers will be the top movie for the third straight weekend. It seems like that might very well happen: compared to Thursday, Little Fockers was up 174% vs. True Grit's 119%.
At no. 3 on Friday was newcomer Season of the Witch, a fantasy adventure starring Nicolas Cage that drew $3.7m at 2,816 venues. The film's per-theater average was a just so-so $1,314.
Down one spot at no. 4, TRON: Legacy took in $2.7m. Joseph Kosinski's sci-fier stars Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde.
At no. 5, Shana Feste's Country Strong, featuring Gwyneth Paltrow, Garrett Hedlund (now the second TRON: Legacy star with two movies among the top five), and Tim McGraw, pulled in $2.57m after expanding to 1,424 locations. Its average was a decent — though hardly outstanding — $1,808 per venue.
Down two spots at no. 6, Darren Aronofsky-Natalie Portman's Black Swanearned $2.43m. It was followed by Mark Wahlberg-Christian Bale's The Fighter with $2.12m at no. 7.
Next in line was Colin Firth-Geoffrey Rush's The King's Speech with $1.76m at no. 8.
Rounding out the top twelve were Eric Brevig's Yogi Bear with $1.3m,Angelina Jolie-Johnny Depp's The Tourist with $1.2m, Michael Apted's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with $1.18m, Disney'sTangled with $1.15m.
Gone from the top twelve on Friday were James L. Brooks-Reese Witherspoon-Paul Rudd's How Do You Know and Jack Black's Gulliver's Travels.
Among the top-twelve movies, The King's Speech had the highest per-theater average, $2,322. Yogi Bear had the lowest, $395.
Also among the top twelve (barring newcomer Season of the Witch and the expanded Country Strong), Little Fockers posted the highest Thursday-to-Friday increase, the aforementioned +174%. Black Swan posted the lowest, +94%.