February 11, 2012

Clint Eastwood Opens Big

by Andrew Gnerre | Published January 12, 2009

Finally getting its wide release a month after hitting theaters, Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino topped the box office this weekend, pulling in $29 million and kicking that damn dog (Marley & Me, which was ousted into fourth place with an $11.3 million weekend) off his lawn. This marks the highest grossing opening weekend for any of Eastwood’s movies and brings the movie’s five-week total to $40 million.

In an almost dead heat, two of the week’s new releases rounded out the top three as Bride Wars, starring Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson and Candice Bergen, took in $21.5 million and David Goyer’s The Unborn, starring Odette Yustman and Gary Oldman, raked in $21.1 million.

David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button finished off the top five with $9.4 million, while the week’s other new release, Bill Duke’s T.D. Jakes adaptation, Not Easily Broken, finished ninth with a respectable $5.6 million in a mere 724 theaters.

Check back next week at the Top of the Box Office report to see if Eastwood’s growl can stand up against a cluttered and somewhat confusing lineup of new releases that includes, in no particular order, a horror remake released one month prior to its obvious holiday tie-in, and in 3D no less, (My Bloody Valentine 3-D); a wide release for Ed Zwick’s Holocaust flick starring Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell (Defiance); a hip-hop biopic starring Jamal Woolard, Derek Luke and Angela Bassett that looks like a made-for-TV movie (Notorious); an Indian kung-fu movie starring Akshay Kumar and Gordon Liu that will see the widest U.S. release of all time for a Bollywood picture (Chandni Chowk to China); and Hotel for Dogs.

SHARE THIS STORY

COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT

Comment by Wilma on 7/09/09 at 4:53 am

Wow
Nice Blog
Keep it up

Comment by Jim Smith on 2/18/10 at 1:39 am

Gran Torino is a truly good film. Eastwood gets better as he gets older… I’ve always admired him, but now he’s turning into one of my favorite actors.

Clint was awesome in it, and that was nice because it made up for the poor actors that acted alongside him.

Comment by GulfPearls on 11/11/11 at 1:08 am