This weekend it was a race between Footloose and Real Steel as to which would top the US box office. On Friday it looked like Footloose was pulling ahead, but with that movie slightly running out of steam as the weekend went on and Real Steel benefitting from family audiences on Saturday and Sunday, it was the robot boxing film that won out with $16.3 million.
That just pulled it ahead of new entry Footloose, which ended up with $16.1 million (although when final figures are released later today, it is possible Footloose will pull ahead of Real Steel). It’s not a bad start for the dancing flick, which only cost $24 million to make.
However while Footloose had reason to be pleased, The Thing didn’t, as it underperformed with only $8.7 million on its debut. While that was enough for third place, it was less than had been expected. The movie wasn’t helped by poor reviews and a lacklustre marketing campaign.
The only other new entry was The Big Year, which took a pretty underwhelming $3.3 million to place ninth on the chart, despite the presence of Owen Wilson, Jack Black and Steve Martin. It was always going to be tough to get people to buy into a movie about bird watching, so perhaps this result isn’t that surprising.
Take a look below for the US box office top 10 for the weekend of October 14th-16th 2011.
General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser