Third time was clearly the charm for the Saw franchise, which enjoyed its strongest opening ever. And not only is its $34.3 million the biggest launch for a Saw film, it’s also US company Lionsgate’s most successful start – it’ll be a happy Halloween for the studio.
Still in a celebratory mood is Martin Scorsese, as The Departed continues to hold on, and dropped just 27% in its fourth week to stay in second place. It’s at $91 million so far, which means that before it leaves cinemas, it’ll easily have become Scorsese’s biggest earning film ever.
In third, The Prestige is doing decent, if fairly unspectacular business, conjuring $9.6 million this second weekend, and making $28 million so far. That was enough to keep it ahead of Flags Of Our Fathers, though, as Clint Eastwood’s Iwo Jimi drama fell under the guns of dodgy word of mouth and could only capture $6.3 million this weekend, adding up to a current running total of $19 million.
Fifth place, and showing tremendous legs, Sony Animation’s Open Season stayed put for a fifth week. Sadly for Fox, the live-action horse drama Flicka couldn’t compete for the kiddie business, and had made just $14 million so far – though it still managed to trot into sixth place.
Robin Williams comedy Man Of The Year was seventh, having earned just under $30 million, while The Grudge 2 is sinking rapidly, and, with a $36 million total to date, definitely not going to repeat the success of the 2004 film. Perhaps we’ll be spared a Grudge 3…
9 and 10 were taken by Marie Antoinette and memoir adaptation Running With Scissors respectively. Sofia Coppola’s latest is still playing in a strictly limited 859 cinemas and has yet to crack $10 million, while Scissors is in even less and has only attracted $2.8 million so far.
There was one other new opening this week- Philip Noyce’s South African action drama Catch A Fire failed to draw any heat, and arrived in 12th place with just $2 million – and that’s despite arriving in 1,305 cinemas.
Suffering? You haven’t seen anything yet. Here’s the horror of The Charts!
1
**Saw III
** $34,300,000
$34,300,000
1
2
**The Departed
** $9,840,000
$91,090,000
4
3
**The Prestige
**
$9,626,000
$28,034,000
2
4
**Flags Of Our Fathers
**
$6,350,000
$19,926,000
2
5
**Open Season
**
$6,100,000
$77,357,000
5
6
**Flicka
**
$4,975,000
$14,138,000
2 7
**Man Of The Year
**
$4,714,000
$28,871,000
3
8
**The Grudge 2
**
$3,300,000
$36,016,000
3
9
Marie Antoinette
$2,850,000
$9,756,000
2
10
**Running With Scissors
**
$2,550,000
$2,884,000
2