Screen GemsA tale of the West corralled the weekend box office.
But, no, the winner wasn't the new Gwyneth Paltrow movie.
In its third weekend, True Grit gritted out its first No. 1 finish, leading the competition, such as it was, with an estimated $15 million Friday-Sunday.
The Coen brothers' redo of the classic Western novel is by far the team's most popular movie ever, now topping $110 million domestically. Next weekend, the Oscar contender will be prominently featured at the Golden Globes home counting its money.
Also in its third weekend, Paltrow's Country Strong broke wide, and landed in sixth place with $7.3 million.
Not good? Actually, pretty good. The twangy soap reputedly only cost $12.5 million.
Less impressive was Nicolas Cage's sword-driven Season of the Witch, which was produced for about $40 million (still pretty cheap), but only made $10.7 million.
Elsewhere, Little Fockers ($13.8 million; $124 million overall) slipped to No. 2 after two weekends on top; while Black Swan ($8.4 million; $61.5 million overall) barely lost a step.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ($4.8 million) and Jack Black's Gulliver's Travels ($4.7 million) both fell from the Top 10: The landing was soft for Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which made two-thirds of its $300 million-plus worldwide gross overseas; it was more of a thud for Gulliver's Travels.
Overall, the weekend was another terrible one for Hollywood. Or, rather, it looked terrible in comparison to last year when Avatar was around, and being Avatar.
Here's a rundown of the top-grossing films, per Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
- True Grit, $15 million
- Little Fockers, $13.8 million
- Season of the Witch, $10.7 million
- Tron: Legacy, $9.8 million
- Black Swan, $8.4 million
- Country Strong, $7.3 million
- The Fighter, $7 million
- The King's Speech, $6.811 million
- Yogi Bear, $6.81 million
- Tangled, $5.2 million