Weekend Box Office: September 3-5

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  The American - $13.1 million

2.  Machete - $11.4 million

3.  Takers - $10.9 million

4.  The Last Exorcism - $7.4 million

5.  Going the Distance - $6.9 million

6.  The Expendables - $6.6 million

7.  The Other Guys - $5.3 million

8.  Eat Pray Love - $4.8 million

9.  Inception $4.5 million

10.  Nanny McPhee Returns - $3.5 million

George Clooney proved a box office winner this Labor Day weekend, easily beating out Robert Rodrieguez' Machete for first place with $13.1 million for the weekend and a $19 million total since opening last Wednesday. 

Machete performed strongest on its opening day on Friday, although business was steady enough through the weekend to finish in second place with $11.4 million ($14 million total including the Monday holiday).  Last weekend's winner, Takers, held on surprising well, dropping 47% to come in third place with $10.9 million.  It's total domestic gross now stands at $39.9 billion, which isn't bad for a film released during one of the quickly-forgotten last weekends of the summer.

The holiday weekend was not as kind to The Last Exorcism, which dropped a whopping 64% from its opening weekend with just $7.4 million.  Still, that's better than Drew Barrymore's romantic comedy Going the Distance did this weekend, which barely outdistanced The Expendables' $6.6 million to come in fifth place with just $6.9 million. 

The rest of the top ten consisted of holdovers that played well while most audiences enjoyed the last official weekend of the summer.  Even Nanny McPhee won the battle against a re-release of Toy Story 3 to round out the top 10 with another $3.5 million.  Toy Story 3's box office shot up 89% this weekend, add another $1.9 million to its staggering (and well-deserved) $408 million domestic total. 

We start the fall movie season next week with Resident Evil: Afterlife kicking all of those sweet family movies out of the 3D theaters.   Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!