No country for old men? Hardly. Man, Warner Bros. has got to be happy. Despite being in theaters for five weeks now, albeit in limited release, Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino” took the number one spot on the box office with a whopping $29 million total putting it’s complete gross so far at $40 million. Not bad for a small little drama, much more scaled back then some of Eastwood’s more ambitious war films. Btw, this was a record for the director/actor, Eastwood’s previous best grossing weekend was with “Space Cowboys,” which earned $18 million in 2000.
Who knew people were dying to see this film? OR, maybe humanity is getting slightly more perceptive and realized this was the only halfway decent new movie opening in theaters.
Even the brand new “Bride Wars” with Bland Hathaway and the star of pretty much every horrible romantic comedy, Kate Hudson, couldn’t stop ‘Torino’ and took in only $21 million, but it was a very healthy opening year box-office that’s for sure. People turned out in droves to whatever was available meaning crap like “The Unborn” also took in $21 million.
‘Benjamin Button’ came in at number 5 adding almost $10 million dollars more to it’s almost $100 million total so far. Tom Cruise’s “Valkyrie” has almost taken in over $70 million so far and Will Smith’s “Seven Pounds” has grossed over $65 million in spite of very poor reviews. Here’s the weekend results with the gross totals so far on the right. Results beyond the top 10 are at Box Office Mojo.
1. Gran Torino – $29.0 million | $40.1 million
2. Bride Wars – $21.5 million | $21.5 million
3. The Unborn – $21.1 million | $21.1 million
4. Marley and Me – $11.4 million | $123.7 million
5. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – $9.5 million | $94.3 million
6. Bedtime Stories – $8,550,000 | $97,180,000
7. Valkyrie – $6,662,000 | $71,509,000
8. Yes Man – $6,155,000 | $89,410,000
9. Not Easily Broken – $5,600,000 | $5,600,000
10. Seven Pounds – $3,900,000 | $66,830,000