Weekend Box Office: September 10-12

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1. Resident Evil: Afterlife - $27.7 million

2. Takers - $6.1 million

3. The American - $5.8 million

4. Machete - $4.2 million

5. Going the Distance - $3.8 million

6. The Other Guys - $3.6 million

7. The Last Exorcism - $3.4 million

8. The Expendables - $3.2 million

9. Inception - $3 million

10. Eat Pray Love - $2.9 million

The fourth film of the Resident Evil franchise was the only film showing any signs of life this weekend, opening with $27.7 million.  That's the highest opening weekend for any of the Resident Evil films, however, that was most likely due to inflated ticket prices since this was the first film in the series to open in 3D, as well as 141 IMAX theaters.

Takers held on decently, taking second place with $6.1 million.  The American didn't hold up as well thanks to some not-so-good word of mouth in its second weekend, dropping 55% with $5.8 million.  However, Machete took the biggest plunge of the weekend, dropping 63% with just $4.2 million. 

The good news for the Drew Barrymore/Justin Long romantic comedy Going the Distance is that it had the smallest drop out of all of last weekend's new releases.  The bad news is that the movie tanked last weekend, so despite the smaller drop, its total gross stands as just a paltry $14 million.

The rest of the top ten is basically a broken record of everything from last week.  The Other Guys moved up from 7th to 6th place with $3.6 million, and The Expendables inched that much closer to $100 million with another $3.2 million this weekend.  Just behind that was Inception, which brought its domestic total to $282 million.  Eat Pray Love is doing okay business for a Julia Roberts film, rounding out the top ten with $2.9 million for a total of $74 million.

Next weekend sees the releases of the animated Alpha and Omega, the comedy Easy A, and Ben Affleck's The Town, which is shaping up to be the only movie likely to breathe any sort of life into the box office.  Stay turned.