Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson together don't add up to one Clint Eastwood.
The 78-year-old Mount Rushmore of movie stars schooled the twentysomethings at the box office, with Eastwood's Gran Torino taking the weekend with a studly $29 million, per studio estimates compiled today by Exhibitor Relations.
Hathaway and Hudson's much-hyped Bride Wars took second ($21.5 million), but struggled to match its magazine-cover output with bottoms in seats.
The comedy was outgrossed, theater for theater, by three Top 10 films: Gran Torino; the new horror film, The Unborn ($21.1 million); and, the new Fireproof-y drama, Not Easily Broken, which made a Fireproof-y $5.6 million off only 724 screens.
Drilling down into the numbers, including just maybe the saddest stat yet for The Spirit:..
- Bride Wars played at about 500 more theaters than Gran Torino and nearly 1,000 more than The Unborn.
- Bride Wars compares favorably to Katherine Heigl's 27 Dresses, which debuted last January with $23 million—albeit on the strength of far better reviews, and without the benefit of about 200 additional theaters.
- This was not Gran Torino's opening weekend. This was its fifth weekend. (It was its first in wide release.)
- In addition to Hathaway and Hudson, Eastwood beat Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Adam Sandler (Bedtime Stories), Tom Cruise (Valkyrie), Will Smith (Seven Pounds) and the guy with the scythe from The Seventh Seal.
- Eastwood's first Eastwood film since Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino has grossed $40.1 million overall. Its typically efficient director reportedly only spent $25 million to produce the Oscar hopeful.
- Not Easily Broken's opening weekend surpassed its reported budget of $5 million.
- After four weekends, The Tale of Despereaux ($2.6 million) isn't within $10 million of its reported $60 million budget.
- After five weekends, The Day the Earth Stood Still is still about $3 million shy of matching its modest (for a high-profile sci-fi film) $80 million budget.
- After a two-weekend run at No. 1, Marley & Me ($11.4 million) slipped to fourth, but hit $123.7 million overall.
- Pitt's Benjamin Button is doing what Oscar contenders rarely do these days: close in on $100 million before nominations are announced. As of today, Button's cumulative take stands at $94.3 million.
- Mickey Rourke's The Wrestler ($873,898 at 60 theaters) continued to star in limited release. Defiance ($66,000 at two theaters) did even better.
- Twilight ($2.8 million) surpassed the $180 million mark overall.
- From Friday-Sunday, the broken-down Spirit sold about 24 tickets a day at each of its theaters.
- The above stat brought to you by highly speculative movie math: take the weekend per-screen average ($515) divide by three, and then divide by the average ticket price ($7.20).
Here's a recap of the top-grossing weekend films based on estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
- Gran Torino, $29 million
- Bride Wars, $21.5 million
- The Unborn, $21.1 million
- Marley & Me, $11.4 million
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, $9.5 million
- Bedtime Stories, $8.6 million
- Valkyrie, $6.7 million
- Yes Man, $6.2 million
- Not Easily Broken, $5.6 million
- Seven Pounds, $3.9 million