'Grit' Remains True

True Grit continued its great run at the box office over the weekend, taking in $15 million for a first place finish in its third weekend.  This represented a soft 38.6% drop week-over-week (considering the prior weekend was still part of the Christmas holiday break). The $38 million-budgeted film has grossed $110.4 million to date, the first Coen brothers film to break $100 million at the box office (No Country for Old Men was their previous best, grossing $74.2 million over its run).

Little Fockers landed in second place on its third weekend, grossing $13.8 million for a total of just under $124 million so far.  With a budget of $100 million, the film still has some work to do to turn a profit for distributor Universal Studios.  Little Fockers suffered a 48.6% drop week-over-week.  Still, once home video, pay-per-view and international grosses are taken into consideration, the studio likely won't take a loss on the film.

Season of the Witch, Nicolas Cage's latest attempt to pay some bills, was the only new opener over the weekend, and brought in a weak $10.7 million for a third place finish.  With a modest $40 million budget, the film will be able to use other avenues to drive enough revenue to break even, but distributor Relativity Media is likely disappointed with the turn out.

Tron: Legacy also suffered a precipitous post-holiday weekend drop, falling 47.7% to fourth place.  The $9.8 million weekend brings the film's total grosses to $148 million after four weekends.  Tron will have to rely on home video, international and ancillary revenues to get into the black.

Finally, Darren Aronofsky's latest film, Black Swan, rode a wave of great critical reviews into a fifth place finish.  The $13 million film brought in $8.3 million over the weekend, a tiny 6% drop from the prior weekend, and has grossed a stellar $61.5 million after six weeks in release.  This represents the first time the film has managed to make its way into the top five, and its holding power bodes very well for the film and its stars as the awards season kicks off.

Comments

[RoneTyne]

True Grit was a good film, not at all what I expected. I'm glad it did so well. Thanks for the review.