American cinemagoers’ appetite for magic tricks seems unabated despite The Illusionist having been out for ages - as Chris Nolan’s The Prestige won the weekend at the box office.
It wasn’t the strongest opening for a film ever, but that $15 million was enough to nab the top spot in a weekend when it looked like Clint Eastwood would rule the charts with Flags Of Our Fathers.
But like Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby before it, Flags started slowly, opening on less screens and with the marketing team talking up the fact that they and Clint will be chatting about a wider release this coming week. Given the time, it’s likely that Flags – again, like the previous Eastwood outings – will grow, but it was still a little surprising to see it arrive in third place.
Still, that’s better than arriving in fifth, which was the fate handed to Alison Lohman and Maria Bello’s Flicka, a heart-warming story of a girl and her best friend (it’s a horse). It could only manage $7.7 million and didn’t exactly bring out the teen girl audience.
Sneaking into the top ten at eighth was Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. Opening on a strictly limited 859 screens, it managed $5.3 million, and may well have the legs to go further.
As for the rest of the charts, it was a low-earning week: The Departed remains the highlight, sticking in second and gouging its way to $77 million so far. Looks like Leo and co will be around for a while. And Open Season spent a second week living in the Forest of Fourth Place (it’s just up the road from Fangorn, apparently), having now scampered off with $69 million. The rest? Falling like autumn leaves: Man Of The Year continued to sink slowly, The Grudge 2 was down 63% from its opening and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and The Marine plummeted to the bottom two places.
The Charts: like prestidigitation, it’s all in the wrist.
1
**The Prestige
** $14,818,000
$14,818,000
1
2
**The Departed
** $13,675,000
$77,148,000
2
3
**Flags Of Our Fathers
**
$10,200,000
$10,200,000
1
4
**Open Season
**
$8,000,000
$69,602,000
4
5
**Flicka
**
$7,700,000
$7,700,000
1
6
**The Grudge 2
**
$7,600,000
$31,380,000
2 7
**Man Of The Year
**
$7,035,000
$22,516,000
2
8
**Marie Antoinette
**
$5,300,000
$5,300,000
1
9
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
$3,845,000
$35,954,000
3
10
**The Marine
**
$3,725,000
$12,547,000
2