'Exorcism', 'Takers' Virtually Tied

The Last Exorcism and Takers, two new releases this weekend, battled it out in a very tight race where it looks like The Last Exorcism squeaked into first place, but the reality won't be known until sometime on Monday.

With an estimated $21.3 million, The Last Exorcism is looking like the first place film for the weekend, but with terrible word of mouth, it's quite possible the film suffered more of a Saturday to Sunday drop than the studio initially estimated.

Takers took in an estimated $21 million in its opening frame, and also suffers from terrible word of mouth, so it'll be interesting to see how this shakes out.

No matter which film takes the top spot, however, Lion's Gate's The Last Exorcism is the real success story here.  Even if the film drops by 70% in its second weekend (a very real possibility),| it's already a hugely profitable film thanks to its tiny $1.8 million production budget.  Even adding in the costs for prints & advertising, a $20 million+ opening will bring the film well into the black.

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'Hurt Locker' Brings The Pain To 'Avatar'

The 82nd Annual Academy Awards happened tonight.  The beginning was incredibly awkward, with the ten nominees for Best Actor and Actress lined up on stage, trying not to fidget as they were announced and the roles they were nominated for listed.  It looked a bit like a beauty pageant where everyone knows the winner has already been determined.

Next up was Neil Patrick Harris, finally squashing all those "straight" rumors with a musical number performed while dressed in an insanely flashy tuxedo.  Finally, after all that, hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin were introduced, flying down from the heavens to grace us with a good old fashioned vaudeville act throughout the night.

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'Wonderland' Apparently Full of Money

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland blew away already high expectations, coming in with a total of $116 million domestically in its opening weekend and $210 million worldwide.  It came in as the sixth highest grossing opening weekend of all time, and easily took the record for largest opening weekend in the first quarter of the year.  Given its family-friendly nature, broadly popular subject matter, strong marketing, 3-D "wow" factor and Johnny Depp and Tim Burton's star power, the film should hold over well in the weekends to come, at least until such time as its 3-D screens are taken away for other, newer, films.

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What Will 'Alice' Do?

Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland opens this weekend, and will undoubtedly have a ripple effect on the box office. While the film has only received middling reviews so far (average 55% Tomatometer rating, 61% from the top critics and a 53 from Metacritic), it's riding a huge wave of hype and is the first big 3-D picture since Avatar came out in December.

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Competition 'Shutter'ed Out Again

Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island blocked newcomers Cop Out and The Crazies from the top spot at the box office this past weekend.  Shutter Island rode a wave of good word of mouth, dropping a respectable 46% in the face of bad weather on the Eastern portion of the continent to a tally of $22.2 million in its second weekend.  The film has earned $75 million to date.

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