Weekend Box Office: Gran Torino Has Grand Weekend

“Gran Torino” is on pace to do better box office than any of Clint’s Dirty Harry movies. 

Adorable puppies–out. Grumpy old men–in. Or so says this weekend’s box office number. Cute doggie flick ”Marley & Me” (which also stars some blonde people) was knocked off its number one perch by “Gran Torino,” Clint Eastwood’s latest. The film, which had been opening slowly, went wide this weekend and was rewarded with $29 million from 2,808 theaters. That puts it on a fast track to move into first place on the all-time Eastwood Box Office chart (curren number one is “Unforgiven” with $101.2 million. But that one also has a few Oscars. Let’s see how “Gran Torino” does there.).

Number 2 was also a new movie. “Bride Wars,” starring Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson earned $21.5 million, despite horrific reviews (it sounds like there are many problems with this movie, but to me the most outlandish thing is the idea that Kate Hudson is supposed to be playing ”a successful, high-powered lawyer.” Really? I’d have a hard time buying her as the secretary of a high-powered lawyer, let alone a member of the bar herself. Maybe a lawyer’s au pair, but that’s about it. Sorry, honey, you haven’t been getting cast in movies because you radiate intelligence.).

And in third place we had yet another new movie (is it any more obvious that people are so over 2008), horror movie “The Unborn,” which made $21.1 million; that’s close enough to “Bride Wars that we might see a switch in the order when final numbers come out later on Monday. Variety said “The Unborn” did much better than expected. Whose expectations were these? It’s been pretty obvious for a number of years that horror movies do well in January. Actually they’re a decent bet any time of year, but a horror movie with a little bit of a winter feel to it will always bring in the folks who are getting cabin fever and want to go get scared in a dark theater.

“Marley & Me” ended up in fourth with $11.4 million. The dog’s more than earned its keep. Fifth place went to the very long “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” which made $9.5 million. Poor Scott Fitzgerald, he struggled so much with money and here he finally has a big film success and he’s not around to enjoy it.

Well, it’s January without question now, not a banner month for movies. Let’s see if we can hang on through the grim weather to hope for something good next week.