The Last Exorcism beats out Takers at the box office

Brad Sturdivant August 29th, 2010

This past weekend was a bit odd in the sense that it featured two films fighting for the top spot that no one seemed interested in seeing. TAKERS has been completed for a while now, but the studio couldn’t decide what to do with it. After Chris Brown laid the beating on Rihanna, the studio had to delay it until people forgot he’s a woman-beater. Looked like the trick worked as TAKERS managed over $20 million at the box office. But that was only good for second place as THE LAST EXORCISM took the top spot with just over $22 million. Horror movies like that always seem to do well and Lionsgate pushed and marketed the film pretty well, but I’m still a little surprised by the numbers. Oh, and for those that are curious, the AVATAR special edition that was re-released didn’t even crack the top 10. Looks like people might finally be sick of the film.

Next week sees the much anticipated release of MACHETE along with George Clooney going dark on us in THE AMERICAN, which technically opens on Wednesday. Given the opportune time of year they’re releasing MACHETE (read: no competition), it should easily take the top spot.

UPDATE: It looks like the early numbers were a little off. TAKERS actually beat out THE LAST EXORCISM at the box office with both films bringing in about $20 million. The numbers below have been updated accordingly.

The Last Exorcism