Those who were hoping to see yet another down-to-the-wire contest between King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia for the top spot at this weekend’s box office may be in for a shock, based on Friday’s estimates.
For one thing, Narnia (in its 5th week) grossed $3.9 million to come in 2nd, while King Kong (in its 4th week) grossed $3.4 million to come in 4th (leaving Fun with Dick and Jane, in its 3rd week, to come in 3rd, with $3.8 million). So the competition between those two films isn’t even close, any more.
But who took 1st place? Hostel, a by-all-accounts ultra-sadistic horror movie that some people have dubbed “horror porn“, with $7.5 million — or almost as much as the 2nd and 3rd movies combined.
Yikes.
Note also that Hostel is the only movie in the Top 5 that is not playing in over 3,000 theatres. In fact, it is in only 2,195 theatres — which means its $3,417 per-screen average is easily the 2nd-highest of the Top 12 (trailing behind only Brokeback Mountain, which made $1.7 million in only 269 theatres for 9th place and a per-screen average of $6,357).
Granted, genre films sometimes drop sharply from Friday to Saturday, and family films like Narnia sometimes go up.
But still, yikes.
JAN 8 UPDATE: Jeffrey Overstreet has linked to this item and invited comments defending the film from those who have seen it. At this point, I doubt I will be one of them. There are too many other movies to see.
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