It’s a safe assumption that Ben Affleck and Emma Stone are happy campers after this weekend. Their respective films, The Town and Easy A finished 1-2 atop the box office over the weekend. Coming in a distant third was Devil, with Resident Evil: Afterlife and Alpha & Omega rounding out the top 5.
The Town raked in $23.8 million over the weekend, scoring a big win for the Affleck-directed film that he also starred in. I went to see the movie this weekend and found it pretty entertaining. It’s a fairly predictable storyline, and if you’ve seen Heat, this will feel quite familiar.
However, Affleck turns in a solid performance as does Jeremy Renner. Jon Hamm, as the FBI pursuer is merely okay, but Blake Lively is stellar as the strung out, ex-girlfriend of Affleck’s character.
Emma Stone‘s Easy A had a fantastic haul of $18.2 million, considering the film’s $8M budget. The teen comedy is Stone’s first film as the solo-lead and this certainly lends credibility to her star.
The marketing behind the film was pretty brilliant – playing on the adorable nature of Stone with a clever teaser trailer and derogative-laced movie poster. I have a feeling that strong word of mouth and a weak lineup next weekend (demographic challenger is You Again) should give Easy A strong legs.
The M. Night Shyamalan-written Devil mildly disappointed, bringing in just $12.6M. Although he didn’t direct the film, Shyamalan’s name was used in the film’s marketing – perhaps to it’s detriment. Audiences appear to have grown weary of Shyamalan’s work and Devil is the lowest opening for a film branded with his name.
Resident Evil: Afterlife brought in $10M in its second weekend; good enough for fourth place. The only other wide-opener this weekend was the animated film Alpha & Omega. It brought in $9.2M for fifth place, with the majority of those ticket sales coming from 3D screens.
Did you go see any of these films? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
