Though not on par with previous thrillers Flightplan and Panic Room, Jodie Foster’s gritty, involving The Brave One topped the box office this weekend, ringing up an estimated $14 million on just over 3,300 screens.
3:10 to Yuma, shot up another $9.2 million, which was good enough to hang on to the second spot at the box office.
New openers Mr. Woodcock and South Korean import Dragon Wars, pulled in $9.1 million and $5.4 million, respectively, each bowing at more than 2,230 theaters. The rest of the top 10 was comprised of summer holdovers, with Superbad (which has now crossed $110 million) and Rob Zombie’s Halloween each tallying another $5 million and change, Matt Damon’s The Bourne Ultimatum picking up $4.1 million to pass the $215 million mark domestically (by far the tops in the series), and ping pong comedy Balls of Fury paddling its way to another $3.3 million, good for a $28.8 million total in its third week of release. In its second week, New Line’s super-stylized Shoot ‘Em Up tumbled out of the top 10, down 55 percent to $2.6 million.
In extremely limited release, finally, Across the Universe, a sprawling love story set to the tunes of the Beatles and starring Evan Rachel Wood, pulled in $685,000 at 23 sites. Expanding in air-quote fashion from its New York bow (from a total of two theaters to five), director Griffin Dunne’s Fierce People picked up just over $24,000. Daniel Radcliffe’s December Boys, meanwhile, rang up only $18,000 at four theaters, proving Harry Potter’s wizardry can only do so much.