With Hurricane Irene pounding the Atlantic Seaboard, theater chains are closing up shop in anticipation for its arrival. Closed cinemas means no money. No money means a low box office gross. The expected total for North American box office grosses is hovering around $80 million. According to Deadline’s Nikki Finke, one studio exec complained to her that “business is in the crapper right now. Any way you slice it business is getting creamed this weekend.” While this weekend wasn’t exactly heavy on major new releases (Colombiana, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, and Our Idiot Brother – all were to have modest openings overall), studios will no doubt be blaming Mother Nature for their films underperformance.
The Help is looking good to repeat as number one by taking in an estimated $13.5 million this weekend. The Luc Besson-produced actioner Colombiana had an estimated $3.7 million on Friday night. Expect it to be at or just below $11 million for the weekend.
FilmDistrict, which had a pair of hits earlier this year with Insidious and Soul Surfer, released Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a new haunted house feature produced by Guillermo del Toro. Considering how plagued the project has been it’ll be lucky if it finishes with $9 million overall. Rise of the Planet of the Apes may be dropping down the list, but should have a four week accumulation of $148 million at the end of Sunday.
Completing the top five is The Weinstein Co’s R-rated comedy Our Idiot Brother starring Paul Rudd. Audiences weren’t really sold on it, but if you like Rudd or any of the actresses that play his sisters (Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, and Emily Mortimer) you do worse in terms of laughs this weekend.
Full box office report coming on Sunday.
