Yuma Tops Weak Box Office

By Kellvin Chavez on September 9, 2007

3:10 to Yuma moseyed to the top of a typically quiet early September weekend box office. Lionsgate's $55 million remake of the 1957 Western of the same name loaded a passable estimated $14.1 million on approximately 3,100 screens at 2,652 theaters. To illustrate the historic softness of the weekend after Labor Day, the movie posted the highest-grossing non-horror opening on record for the frame.

Much has been made of Hollywood's aversion to theatrical Westerns in the past few decades, and 3:10 to Yuma's opening probably isn't significant enough to affect the state of the genre either way. The movie marks the first widely-released, traditionally gunslinging Western since Open Range in 2003. That picture had greater attendance out of the gate with $16 million adjusted for ticket price inflation at 2,075 sites and it closed with the equivalent of $66 million today.

Proper Westerns are so rare that when a movie has Western trappings, that fact becomes the all-encompassing selling point. Such was the case with 3:10 to Yuma, which added some slick graphics to its action-oriented marketing. The picture also stood out as a vehicle for lead actor Russell Crowe, who has had unusual success in the period action movies Gladiator and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, though his first Western, The Quick and the Dead, was a disappointment.

Also opening, Shoot 'Em Up made a weak estimated $5.5 million at 2,108 locations. Too self-conscious and too much like a video game in its premise, New Line Cinema's over-the-top action picture failed like the studio's recent similar pictures Domino and Running Scared. Faring far worse was The Brothers Solomon, a $10 million Sony comedy that grossed a mere estimated $525,000 at 700 venues.

In second for the weekend, Labor Day champion Halloween bled 62 percent to an estimated $10 million for $44.2 million in 10 days, its drop common for the horror genre. Holding well, Superbad followed with an estimated $8 million, down 36 percent for $103.7 million in 24 days. In general, holdovers saw standard declines for the frame.

WEEKEND TOP 10 STUDIO ESTIMATES, SEPTEMBER 7-9, 2007

1	3:10 to Yuma	$14.1 M
2	Halloween	$10.0 M
3	Superbad	$8.0 M
4	Balls of Fury	$5.7 M
5	The Bourne Ultimatum	$5.5 M
6	Shoot 'Em Up	$5.5 M
7	Rush Hour 3	$5.3 M
8	Mr. Bean's Holiday	$3.4 M
9	The Nanny Diaries	$3.3 M
10	Hairspray	$2.0 M

Source:Box Office Mojo

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