Weekend Box Office: January 27 - 29

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  The Grey - $20 million

2.  Underworld Awakening -  $12.5 million

3.  One for the Money - $11.7 million

4.  Red Tails - $10.4 million

5.  Man on a Ledge - $8.3 million

6.  Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - $7.1 million

7.  The Descendants - $6.55 million

8.  Contraband - $6.5 million

9.  Beauty and the Beast 3D - $5.3 million

10.  Haywire - $4 million

The frozen wilderness, a plane crash, and wolves have learned not to screw with Liam Neeson, and neither has the box office, as The Grey sailed its way to the top spot this weekend with an estimated $20 million.  That's slightly below the openings of two previous ass-kicking Neeson films Taken ($24.7 million) and Unknown ($21.9 million), but still a better than expected opening.

It was even good enough to finish the weekend well ahead of two films that had somewhat of an edge thanks to ticket deals offered on Groupon, as One For the Money opened with $11.7 million and Man on Ledge opened with $8.3 million.  However, audiences seemed to prefer their action movies involving Liam Neeson vs. wolves, vampires vs. werewolves, and tales of the Tuskegee Airmen, as Underworld Awakening held on at second place with $11.7 million and Red Tails still came out ahead of Ledge with $10.4 million.

Since the Oscar nominations were announced earlier this week, a few of the nominees had their theater counts boosted and saw some nice bumps in attendance this weekend.  Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which was inexplicably nominated for Best Picture, managed to stick around in the top five with $7.1 million, and The Descendants found a place just behind it with $6.55 million.  The Artist inched that much closer to the top ten (first time for a silent film...ever?) with it's best weekend yet, earning $3.3 million, and Hugo returned to many locations this weekend and earned a decent $2.3 million.

Next weekend, Daniel Radcliffe hopes to scare the crap out of moviegoers (in a good way) in his first major post-Harry Potter role as The Woman in Black opens in theaters.  It will be competing with the found-footage/superhero-ish film Chronicle, as well as the save-the-trapped whales family film Big Miracle.  Should be another busy weekend.