Box Office: Zombieland No.1 with $25 Million

The box office rose from the dead this weekend with a killer opening by Zombieland. The Sony Pictures film which stars Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg received a positive response from audiences and critics alike. Zombieland has a solid 89% fresh rating via Rotten Tomatoes and with little competition at movie theaters the film easily took the top spot. Even with an R rating the horror/ comedy blend brought in a big audience making it a big opening for the month of October. The film held off competition from newcomers like the Toy Story 3D double feature, The Invention of Lying, and Whip It. Continue reading for a full weekend recap of the weekend box office.

Opening as a two week limited engagement, Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3D came in the number three spot with $12.5 million. The Disney Pixar collaboration returned to theaters in Disney Digital 3D for only two weeks. Next summer we will be treated to Toy Story 3 in 3D. The higher price ticket sales for 3D helped this double feature rake in the money. Since the movie is a double feature movie theaters are only able to run about three shows a day which prevented it from an even bigger opening.

Rick Gervais opened his latest movie, The Invention of Lying with $7.3 million. Not too bad for a movie that only cost $18 million to make.

The other new wide release this weekend was Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut Whip It. The roller derby comedy starring Juno’s Ellen Page bombed in the number six spot with only $4.8 million. Even with an 81% fresh rating, the coming of age comedy/ drama couldn’t attract much of an audience.

The rest of the weekend box office looked like this:

The animated kid’s movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs continued its hot streak bringing in another $16.7 million week number three. So far the movie has brought in $83.3 million. Not too bad for a movie that opened in September.

Surrogates, starring Bruce Willis, dropped to number five this weekend, which meant only $7.3 million after a 50% drop from last week. After two weeks of release the sci-fi film has made $26.3 million.

This Friday Vince Vaughn and company will hit theaters with the ensemble comedy Couples Retreat. The fall season is upon us, let’s hope the box office can stay strong until the holidays.

Box office numbers courtesy of Box Office Mojo