Worst Weekend in 4 Years

Weekend Recap: 9/7-9/2012

Yep, you read that title correctly. This past weekend was the lowest grossing weekend at the box office since this same weekend in 2008. You can blame the start of school, or college football, or the NFL, but any way you slice it, this weekend was bad.

The Possession (review coming soon) came out on top for the second weekend in a row with $9.5 million for a 10-day total of $33.3 million, a decent showing for a movie of its type. This is the eighth weekend a film produced by Lionsgate (The Hunger Games, The Expendables 2) has led the box office, more than any other studio so far this year (Universal and Sony both have seven).

Lawless (review here) grossed $6 million for second place, giving it a 12-day total of $23.5 million. The Words (review here) debuted to a disappointing $5 million in third, while The Expendables 2 (review here) and The Bourne Legacy (review here) extended their relatively strong runs in fourth and fifth, respectively, each earning over $4 million.

In sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth place, respectively, were ParaNorman, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, The Campaign, The Dark Knight Rises (review here), and 2016: Obama's America, which each brought in over $3 million to round out the Top Ten. With a total of $26.1 million, 2016 is now the second-highest grossing political documentary ever, far behind Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 ($119.2 million).

Meanwhile, the new film The Cold Light of Day opened with a meager $1.8 million in 1,511 theaters. Compare that to the IMAX re-release of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which grossed almost as much, $1.7 million, from only 267 locations, giving it a exceedingly higher per-venue average ($6,367) than any film in the Top Ten.

Additionally, Bachelorette opened in 47 theaters to $181 thousand (a per-location average of $3,851) and Branded bombed with $240 thousand from 307 theaters (for an average of $781), while the premiere of Hello I Must Be Going took in $23 thousand from 2 theaters, giving it the highest per-venue average of the weekend ($11,500).

Here's a snapshot of the Top Ten Weekend Films domestically:

#	Title	Weekend Gross	Theater Average	Total Gross
1	The Possession	$9.5 million	$3,352	$33.3 million
2	Lawless	$6 million	$1,912	$23.5 million
3	The Words	$5 million	$1,785	$5 million
4	The Expendables 2	$4.8 million	$1,472	$75.4 million
5	The Bourne Legacy	$4 million	$1,446	$103.7 million
6	ParaNorman	$3.8 million	$1,330	$45.1 million
7	The Odd Life of Timothy Green	$3.6 million	$1,324	$43 million
8	The Campaign	$3.5 million	$1,376	$79.5 million
9	The Dark Knight Rises	$3.285 million	$1,653	$437.8 million
10	2016	$3.281 million	$1,626	$26.1 million