September 12, 2011 by Vinnie Leduc
The Help, which became the first film of the year to three-peat as domestic box office champ last week, has finally been unseated. After holding the top spot for 25 days (incredibly, the longest since The Sixth Sense was no. 1 for 35 days in 1999), the civil rights drama adaptation fell to no. 2 behind Steven Soderbergh’s thriller Contagion. Of the remaining newcomers, Warrior fought its way to no. 3 with less-than-modest numbers despite critical acclaim. Both of the other wide releases, Happy Madison’s Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star and Creature, bombed badly to historically low numbers, including single-digit per-showing attendance figures, and settled way out of the top 10 (#15 and #17, respectively). Last week’s double dose of PG-13 terror, Apollo 18 and Shark Attack 3D, both fell out of the top 5 in their second weekends, allowing Columbiana to creep back into fifth place in its third week, just behind The Debt in its second week.
Here were the top 5 in the domestic box office last weekend via BOM:
- Contagion — Weekend Gross: $23.1 million — Total Gross: $23.1 million (new)
- The Help — Weekend Gross: $8.7 million — Total Gross: $137.1 million (#1 last week)
- Warrior — Weekend Gross: $5.6 million — Total Gross: $5.6 million (new)
- The Debt — Weekend Gross: $4.9 million — Total Gross: $22.0 million (#2 last week)
- Columbiana — Weekend Gross: $4.0 million — Total Gross: $29.8 million (#6 last week)
