It was the battle of the manly gunslingers this weekend across the pond, extended an extra day thanks to the Labor Day holiday on Monday. But while the competition was fierce, with the top films changing positions more than once, the drawing power of George Clooney in The American was able to overcome Danny Trejo as Machete.
Clooney’s latest, the meditative, only occasionally bullet-flinging thriller, managed to win out with $13.1 million across the three days. That led it to the top spot, beating out Robert Rodriguez' gore-soaked satire of immigration and Mexpolitation films. Machete started well, but lost pace, eventually ending up in second with $11.4 million. Still, that was enough to best heist pic **Takers, **which dropped to third and $10.9 million and The Last Exorcism, which sank quickly from second to fourth, earning $7.5 million. Down in fifth, we find the brutally underperforming Going the Distance, which arrived with $6.8 million, marking one of the worst rom com debuts for a while.
The rest of the charts belonged to the likes of **The Expendables **(pushed down to sixth with $6.7 million), The Other Guys (seventh, with $5.4 million) and Eat Pray Love, which fell to eighth and $4.8 million.
Bringing up the rear, we have Inception, which earned $4.5 million in its eighth week of release for a running total of $227 million in the US alone and Nanny McPhee Returns at 10th with $3.5 million.
Explode your chart needs over at Box Office Mojo.