Powered by a record-setting, $19-million Saturday (the biggest September day on record), Hotel Transylvania, Sony’s animated offering from voice star and executive producer Adam Sandler, is on track to ring up an estimated $43 million this weekend, topping the box office charts. Rian Johnson’s well received Looper has the second spot on lockdown, with around $21.2 million. End of Watch, Trouble with the Curve and House at the End of the Street round out the top five, with $8, $7.5 and $7.2 million, respectively.
Opening in only 335 theaters, the winning Pitch Perfect scored a per-screen average of over $15,500, good for around $5.2 million; it opens wide next weekend. Meanwhile, coming-of-age tale The Perks of Being a Wallflower, on only 102 screens, also flexed its initial platform muscle ($11,145 per screen), pulling in almost $1.2 million, good for 13th place. The 3-D presentation of Finding Nemo, Resident Evil: Retribution, The Master and Won’t Back Down slotted seventh through tenth, trailing the aforementioned Pitch Perfect. Apparently fanboy embrace has its limits, though; slipping out of the top 10 was Dredd, with an estimated $2.28 million for the weekend, and now only $10.87 million Stateside overall.
