True Grit Box Office News Reports

True Grit Lassoes Weekend Box Office

Blame the weather, the start of the NFL Playoffs or stale multiplex leftovers, but the North American box office continued to underperform in its second 2011 weekend. Two new releases, Nicolas Cage's medieval flick Season of the Witch and Gwyneth Paltrow's Southern drama Country Strong, both had mild openings while Paramount's True Grit and Universal's Little Fockers occupied the top two spots for a third straight weekend. Overall, the top ten was down 30% from last weekend's holiday take and down a sizable 40% from last year at this time when Fox's juggernaut Avatar earned more than the current top five combined.

For the first time since opening a few days before Christmas, True Grit took the top spot at the North American box office with a $15 million from 3,124 screens. Dropping only 38%, the popular Western has taken in $110.4 million to date. This is the first movie from Joel and Ethan Coen to cross the $100 million mark domestically and should continue to perform strongly through the foreseeable future. A $155-160 final tally is not out of the question, which is a total that would have made distributor Paramount ecstatic had the film pulled that in globally.

Universal's holiday hit Little Fockers took a 46% post-holiday hit but continued to sell tickets in its third weekend, raising $13.7 million to bring its three-week total to approximately $124 million. The third chapter of the Robert DeNiro/Ben Stiller "in-laws" films has withstood the slings and arrows of the nation's critics and some savage word-of-mouth from ticket buyers to become a decent-sized hit, albeit one that is grossing far less than its 2004 predecessor which had earned $211 million in the same period of time.

In third place with an estimated $10.7 million from 2,816 screens was Relativity Media's medieval flick Season of the Witch. Starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman, the film's opening was in line with the studio's estimates (translation: we're dumping it and moving on). Reviews for the long-delayed $40 million production (it was originally set to open last March) were - with a four percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes - not particularly kind.

Disney's Tron: Legacy downloaded its way to fourth place in its fourth weekend with an estimated $9.8 million gross to bring its total to the $148 million mark. Dropping 48% from last weekend, the sequel is on course to make it to the $170 million mark despite the fact that the movie is about to lose a majority of its IMAX screens next Friday to Sony's The Green Hornet. Overseas, Legacy has grossed an estimated $143 million to bring its global total to $291 million thus far.

In fifth place was Fox Searchlight's Black Swan which kept rolling along in its sixth week at 1,584 theaters. Darren Aronofsky's dance thriller eased a mere 6% to add $8.3 million to its total which currently stands at $61.4 million. If the Golden Globes and Oscars are kind to lead Natalie Portman and the film, it could cross that magical nine-figure mark by the end of its run.

In sixth place was the weekend's other wide debut, the Screen Gems music drama Country Strong. Landing in 1,424 theaters after a two-week limited run in New York and Los Angeles, the Gwyneth Paltrow starrer earned $7.3 million for an acceptable per-screen average of $5,126. Like Season of the Witch, Country Strong was ripped apart by national critics (17% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes). The film opened on the upper end of studio expectations. Even if the film pulls a fast fade, it should have no problem recouping its $12.5 million production budget.

Withstanding the post-holiday drop in seventh place was Paramount's The Fighter which entered its fifth round to earn $7 million from 2,528 screens. To date, the $25 million sports drama has earned a respectable $57.8 million in domestic sales. At the very least it should find its way to the $75 million range. Should it collect some awards along the way, the total could come closer to $90 million.

The Weinstein Company's historical drama The King's Speech continued to stand ground in the top ten despite being on a mere 758 screens. For the weekend, the movie dropped a mere 12.4% from last weekend to earn $6.8 million to bring its early total to $33.2 million. Its $8,985 per screen average was easily the best in the top ten. The film is expected to go wide toward the end of the month when the Oscar nominations are announced.

Rounding out the top ten this weekend were two 3D family features. Warner's Yogi Bear dropped 45% from the holiday weekend to snatch $6.8 million worth of cinematic picnic baskets. Its total currently stands at $75.6 million. In tenth place for its seventh weekend was Disney's long-running animated hit Tangled which lost 47% of its audience from New Year's weekend to gross $5.2 million for the weekend. The domestic total now stands at a tall $176 million.

Next weekend Sony will debut its 3D action comedy The Green Hornet starring Seth Rogen while Universal will open the latest from director Ron Howard, the Vince Vaughn/Kevin James comedy The Dilemma. Both of these new films will be available to predict their opening weekend tallies in our interactive Weekend Box Office Prophet Game.