1. The Expendables
Gross: $16,500,000 ($64,890,000)
Screens: 3,270 (PSA: $5,046)
Weeks: 2 (change: -52.6%)
Just as Jennifer Aniston's The Switch is based on Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides short story "The Baster," so too is Stallone's The Expendables loosely based on a one-act Noel Coward play entitled "Mr. Featherdangle Comes to Town." Stallone made extensive changes.
2. Vampires Suck
Gross: $12,200,000 ($18,564,000)
Screens: 3,082 (PSA: $3,774)
Weeks: 1
Michael Ordoña can breathe a little easier this week; had Vampires actually hit number one, the collective trolls of the internet would have unleashed hell upon him until their mothers' called from the bottom of the stairs to tell them dinner was ready.
3. Eat, Pray, Love
Gross: $12,000,000 ($47,100,000)
Screens: 3,082 (PSA: $3,894)
Weeks: 2 (change: -48.1%)
I've been away the past two weekends, so I didn't get a chance to weigh in on Eat, Pray, Love. So allow me to just say that I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this awful, meandering, self-indulgent, navel-gazing paean to self-absorption and limitless self-pity. But gosh, Borneo looked absolutely beautiful.
4. Lottery Ticket
Gross: $11,125,000 (new)
Screens: 1,973 (PSA: $5,639)
Weeks: 1
It was just 15 short years ago that Ice Cube was playing the young tough in Friday, while now he plays the grizzled old voice of reason. So Bow Wow, practice your cantankerous complaining -- 2025 will come sooner than you think.
5. The Other Guys
Gross: $10,100,000 ($88,190,000)
Screens: 3,472 (PSA: $2,909)
Weeks: 3 (change: -42.0%)
Virtually everyone I know that has seen this movie has recommended it to me, but I can't bring myself to see it. I think it's because Mark Wahlberg and I still haven't made up after The Happening. I'm still learning to trust again, Mark -- I need my own space right now.
6. Piranha 3D
Gross: $10,035,000 (new)
Screens: 2,470 (PSA: $4,063)
Weeks: 1
This might seem like a rather disappointing opening for Piranha 3D, especially considering it's buoyed by higher prices for the privilege of seeing Not-Joe Francis' penis fly at your face in 3D. But on the bright side, at least Adam Scott will have to make fewer house calls this way.
7. Nanny McPhee Returns
Gross: $8,310,000 (new)
Screens: 2,784 (PSA: $2,985)
Weeks: 1
Emma Thompson might think that Audrey Hepburn couldn't really sing and couldn't really act, but I'm pretty sure Hepburn wouldn't have been caught dead in a bland CVS-brand rip-off of Mary Poppins. So perhaps we'll call this even?
8. The Switch
Gross: $8,100,000 (new)
Screens: 2,012 (PSA: $4,026)
Weeks: 1
And down in the basement we have this stubborn little barnacle. You could argue whether it was either Jennifer Aniston's or Jason Bateman's inability to open a movie, or perhaps an awkward, stilted ad campaign was to blame, but I think we can agree on one thing: Between this and Michael Cera's bob-omb of a movie, I bet they're both suddenly a lot more interested in an Arrested Development feature.
[Numbers via Box Office Mojo]