Box Office

From ew, Star power still clearly counts for something. Despite a shocking “D-” CinemaScore indicating near-toxic word-of-mouth, The American rose to the top of the Labor Day weekend box office largely on star George Clooney’s handsome shoulders, making $16.4 million over the four-day holiday and $19.5 million since its Wednesday debut, according to early estimates. That’s a terrific sum for a moviegoing weekend known as one of the sleepiest of the year, even more so considering the film’s lean $20 million budget.

Audiences, evenly split between men and women, were markedly outside the usual multiplex whippersnapper demographic, too: 55 percent were 50-years-old and older. But why were they apparently so turned off by the film? (Women gave it an F.) I’d look to a marketing campaign that had ticket buyers expecting a fleet spy thriller led by a dashing Clooney, à la the gritty Hollywood studio films of the 1970s. In reality, they walked into an austere character study focused on a dour Clooney, à la the esoteric European art films of the 1970s. (My mother, who liked the movie, put it this way: “The plot…well, there is no plot.”) Regardless of why audiences have soured on the film, the negative feedback doesn’t exactly bode well for its financial longevity.


After coming in third in the three-day box office estimates, the “mexploitation” thriller Machete clawed its way back to second place with an estimated $14 million over the four-day Labor Day holiday. That’s just over the opening gross of the film’s progenitor, the 2007 double-feature Grindhouse. Last weekend’s number one film, meanwhile, showed some staying power. (While the dollar figures I’ll be discussing will include projected Labor Day grosses, all the percentage drops are for the Friday to Sunday period only, to equitably compare with last weekend’s grosses.) Dropping 47 percent, Takers took in $13.5 million, for a $40 million total and third place. In fourth place, The Last Exorcist plunged 64 percent in its second weekend, which is about right for a horror film with a polarizing final act. It grossed $8.8 million through Labor Day, for a $33.6 million cume.

Full report here