May 26, 2012

Nicolas Cage Knows He's On Top

by Goldy Moldavsky | Published March 23, 2009

A document full of secrets + Nicolas Cage = an unstoppable combination for box office success. Knowing, a movie about a professor who decodes an unearthed piece of paper that predicts catastrophic events, took first place this weekend with an estimated $24.8 million, adding to the recent big ticket successes for Cage that include the National Treasure movies.

I Love You, Man, the male bonding comedy starring Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, took in a respectable $18 million for second place in 2,711 theaters, averaging around the same amount that Rudd’s Role Models and Segel’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall took in for their respective opening weekends.

Following in third place with $14.4 million was Duplicity, a movie that relied heavily on Julia Roberts and Clive Owen’s star power in promotional ads.

Race to Witch Mountain was not far behind in fourth place with $13 million. And Watchmen dropped another 62 percent from last week’s spot in second place to fifth with $6.7 million, bringing the three-week total for the $150 million movie to $98 million.

Sin Nombre, an independent feature that opened in six theaters, averaged a strong $12,900 per screen for $77,400.

Next week the competition gets tougher with Dreamworks’ Monsters vs. Aliens, a 3-D animated movie with Reese Witherspoon and Seth Rogen voicing characters. Also opening is The Haunting in Connecticut, a horror movie with similarities to The Amityville Horror, and 12 Rounds, a thriller with John Cena and Ashley Scott.