Anything George Clooney touches usually turns to gold, but Hollywood's favourite son came a croper this weekend with the release of Leatherheads, his third film as director, which also starred Renee Zellweger. The screwball comedy, which has received mixed, but by no means poisonous, reviews, was beaten into second place by last week's number one 21. The gambling frolick took $15.1 million (taking it to $46.5 million in ten days), while Clooney's pic took just $13.5 million on 3,300 screens.
It was not especially good news for Nim's Island, the kid flick starring Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler and Abigail Breslin, which took $13.3 million on over 4,000 screens. That's a disappointing haul considering the talent involved. The film finished a few million ahead of Horton Hear's A Who, currently on its fourth week and adding $9.1 million to its $131 million takings.
Elsewhere in new releases, horror movie The Ruins underwhelmed with $7.8 million and Martin Scorsese's Shine A Light, a Rolling Stones concert movie, took a respectable $1.5 million on 276 screens.
Overall, this was the least successful box office weekend of 2008.