Topping the box office charts, as they say, is good. It was certainly good news for Oliver Stone, who despite seeing Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps fail to quite hit the expectations of box office prognosticators, enjoyed his best opening number ever as the return of Gordon Gekko earned $19 million and first place in the charts across the pond this weekend.
Zach Snyder’s first try at animated family fare, the incredibly over-titled Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole was left flapping in Wall Street’s wake, but it managed to claw out $16.3 million. Considering it’s from “the studio that brought you Happy Feet”, we doubt Warner Bros. will be all that thrilled, since the penguin film managed to open with more than $41 million back in 2006. But it was still enough to fly ahead of The Town, which dropped to third with $16 million, and Easy A, which slipped down to fourth and $10.7 million. But given that the comedy was made for $8 million and has already taken $32.8 million, the latter is still a success.
The opposite of "a success" turned out to be You Again, with the Disney comedy arriving in fifth place with $8.3 million, despite the incredible drawing power of Betty White. Oh, and Kristen Bell, Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver. It would appear people are truly getting tired of factory-made rom-coms.
In sixth place, we find horror thriller Devil, which took the box office elevator down from third with $6.4 million, Resident Evil: Afterlife at seventh with $4.9 million, wolf ‘toon Alpha and Omega down to eighth with $4.7 million, Takers in ninth place with $1.6 million and, possibly ready to leave the top ten at last (though it has rebounded before), Inception at 10th with $1.2 million and more than $287 million total earnings in America alone.