It's expected that box office numbers go up on Sunday afternoon. By that point, the estimates tend to be pretty accurate and if there is a difference come Monday morning, it's negligible. Not so today. Three new releases are nearly deadlocked as I write this and we won't know until sometime tomorrow who will actually be one top. We shall update accordingly. Anyway, here's where we stand right now.

FilmWeekendPer ScreenTotal
1 House at the End of the Street
$13,000,000$4,217$13,000,000
2End of Watch$13,000,000$4,762 $13,000,000
3Trouble With the Curve$12,720,000$3,960$12,720,000
4Finding Nemo 3D $9,446,000 (-43.4)$3,253 $29,979,000
5 Resident Evil: Retribution$6,700,000 (-68.2)
$2,221 $33,468,000
6Dredd$6,300,000$2,514 $6,300,000
7The Master $5,000,000 (+579.1)$6,345$6,059,000
8The Possession $2,630,000 (-54.4)$1,012 $45,650,000
9 Lawless$2,321,000 (-46.6)$888$34,512,000
10ParaNorman$2,297,000 (-25.7)$1,421$52,566,000

 

So that's where we stand: 'House at the End of the Street,' 'End of Watch' and 'Trouble With the Curve' are all set to gross $13 million or so. As the chart indicates, the 'Trouble With the Curve' is a little behind the others, but when it's this close, we can't call it. For intents and purposes this is a tie. Granted, all three are fighting over a weekend that isn't particularly impressive, but you've got to take the little victories when the big ones elude you.

For the long-delayed 'House at the End of the Street,' $13 million is a solid opening. Horror is cheap and so on and so forth. For 'End of Watch,' $13 million is strictly middling and further evidence that Jake Gyllenhaal may be a known quantity, but he can't open a movie. For 'Trouble With the Curve,' $13 million is solid enough for a movie that was advertised poorly and stars that Hollywood legend who talks to chairs.

So $13 million isn't great, but it's certainly a step above the $6 million opening for 'Dredd,' which is a shame since it's a pretty terrific little action movie. The last terrific little action bombed this hard was 'Punisher: War Zone,' which has since become a cult favorite. 'Dredd' is destined to be that movie everyone discovers at home and puts on during rainy Saturday afternoons.

Of last week's films, 'Finding Nemo' held the best, taking in another $9 million for a $29 million gross. Not bad for a movie that already broke $300 million nearly a decade ago. Right under it, 'Resident Evil: Retribution' took a massive (and expected) 68% drop for a current gross of $33 million. Like its predecessors, it'll finish up with $50-$60 million.

The most fun number of the week goes to 'The Master,' which saw a 571% increase. However, that's only a $5 million gross for the weekend. Paul Thomas Anderson's latest may have broken box office records in limited release last week, but the current wide release isn't doing quite as well as many had hoped. To be perfectly honest, it's doing about as well as a Paul Thomas Anderson film usually does. And that's that.

We're about halfway through the painful transition between the summer blockbusters and the winter Oscar contenders. However, the strictly mediocre numbers should change next week the arrival of 'Looper' and 'Hotel Transylvania.' We can only hope.

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