Weekend Box Office
1) High School Musical 3: Senior Year $42 million
2) Saw V $30.5 million
3) Max Payne $7.6 million
4) Beverly Hills Chihuahua $6.9 million
5) Pride and Glory $6.3 million
7) W.
8) Eagle Eye
9) Body of Lies
10) Quarantine
It was a blood battle at the box office this weekend. The kids of High School Musical 3: Senior Year went toe-to-toe with the notorious Jigsaw killer in Saw V. It was the singing and dancing combination of Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens that defeated and beat those gruesome traps, taking in $42 million for the top spot. Saw V didn't go down without a fight, though. Despite its run in second place, this fifth installment of the hugely popular horror franchise still managed to nab $30.5 million. That's about $1 million down from the last couple of sequels, but you can guess that those lost audience members got stuck taking their girlfriend or little sister to the above mentioned Disney juggernaught.
This weekend's only other new major release was Warner Brothers' Pride and Glory, which stars Colin Farrell and Edward Norton. The police drama dropped itself off in fifth place, taking in the small sum of $6.3 million. The film with the highest per screen average was Clint Eastwood's drama The Changeling. Starring Angelina Jolie, the film grabbed $502,000 playing on just 15 screens.
A few other small releases did quite well for themselves this weekend. The Logo Series big screen adaptation Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom drew in $32,200 from just five screens, giving it the second highest per screen average of the weekend. And Charlie Kaufman's strange horror drama Synecdoche, New York came in with the third highest per screen average, delivering $19,222 worth of ticket sales on nine screens. Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D was re-released on 284 screens and brought in $372,000. While the Anne Hathaway drama Passengers found enough people willing to give it a look for $185,00 on 125 screens.
Look for the kids of High School Musical 3: Senior Year to stay ahead of the pack next week when their only real competition is the raunchy Kevin Smith comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno.