Zombieland, starring Woody Harrelson (in the role of his career) delivered an impressive $25M opening, defying most industry expectations and putting a stop to the current trend of scary movies bombing at the box office. The $25M debut was real close to my $24M prediction and a notch above the $17M-$22M range that most analysts predicted.  Zombieland is yet another hit for Sony behind the still going strong Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, District 9 and The Ugly Truth. The reviews have been generally positive (read my review here), so the gory comedy should hold pretty well over the next few weekends. Look for Zombieland to make about $70M by the end of its run.

Disney Pixar’s rerelease of Toy Story 1 and 2 as a 3-D double feature was a success, collecting $12.5M, right on with my $13M call. Disney marketed the double feature very well and awareness was quite high. The chance to see both of these beloved films together in 3-D for the price of one was too much to families to resist. Considering both of these films have been available on DVD for quite awhile, the $12.5M gross was quite good, especially when competition from the still hot Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is factored in. This s a 2 week special event, so Toy Story should hold up fairly well next weekend.

The Invention of Lying from writer/director/actor Ricky Gervais had a decent debut in 4^th place, collecting $7.4M, on target with my $7M forecast. This was nearly a 50% improvement on Gervais’ Ghost Town ($5M) which came out this time last fall. Reviews have been mixed and it is doubtful that the film will have legs as Gervais’ core fanbase has already come out to support the filmmaker. Look for Lying to con its way to about $18M. 

Whip It starring Ellen Page and directed by first timer Drew Barrymore failed to whip up any enthusiasm from film goers, debuting with a comely $4.9M, close to my $5.5M prediction. The reviews were good, but the target audience of teenage girls and young women didn’t feel the need to see the roller derby comedy. This is the 2^nd film in a row to miss out on this target audience after last weekend’s Fame flopped, collecting a paltry $10M. 

Capitalism: A Love Story, the latest documentary from Michael Moore tied with Whip It for 6^th place, taking in $4.9M, lower than my $6M call. The film was in about 800 less theatres than Whip It and if you look at per screen averages, Capitalism was actually #4 this weekend. It is very rare for documentaries to make a killing at the box office, with Moore’s films generally being the exception to the rule. Though Capitalism didn’t match up to some of Moore’s other films, in the world of documentary filmmaking, Moore is still the box office king. 

Among holdovers, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs continued o soar, despite losing many of its 3-D venues to Toy Story. The animated kid flick dropped a reasonable 33% to serve up another $16.7M in box office receipts, right in line with my call for a drop of 30%. To see how the rest of the top 10 shaped up and how my predictions fared, check out the chart below.

Be sure to come back Thursday for my predictions for this weekend’s only wide release, Couples Retreat starring Vince Vaughn and Jason Bateman.

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