'3:10 to Yuma' Arrives at Top Spot
Author: Brandon Gray | 
3:10 to Yuma moseyed to the top of a typically quiet early September weekend box office. Lionsgate's $55 million remake of the 1957 Western of the same name loaded a passable $14 million on approximately 3,100 screens at 2,652 theaters. To illustrate the historic softness of the weekend after Labor Day, the movie posted the highest-grossing non-horror opening on record for the frame.
Much has been made of Hollywood's aversion to theatrical Westerns in the past few decades, and 3:10 to Yuma's opening probably isn't significant enough to affect the state of the genre either way. The movie marks the first widely-released, traditionally gunslinging Western since Open Range in 2003. That picture had greater attendance out of the gate with $16 million adjusted for ticket price inflation at 2,075 sites and it closed with the equivalent of $66 million today.
Proper Westerns are so rare that when a movie has Western trappings, that fact becomes the all-encompassing selling point. Such was the case with 3:10 to Yuma, which added some slick graphics to its action-oriented marketing. The picture also stood out as a vehicle for lead actor Russell Crowe, who has had unusual success in the period action movies Gladiator and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, though his first Western, The Quick and the Dead, was a disappointment.
Also opening, Shoot 'Em Up made a weak $5.7 million at 2,108 locations. Too self-conscious and too much like a video game in its premise, New Line Cinema's over-the-top action picture failed like the studio's recent similar pictures Domino and Running Scared. Faring far worse was The Brothers Solomon, a $10 million Sony comedy that grossed merely $508,601 at 700 venues.
In second for the weekend, Labor Day champion Halloween bled 64 percent to $9.5 million for $43.7 million in 10 days, its drop common for the horror genre. Holding well, Superbad followed with $7.6 million, down 39 percent for $103.2 million in 24 days. In general, holdovers saw standard declines for the frame. Brandon Gray
Much has been made of Hollywood's aversion to theatrical Westerns in the past few decades, and 3:10 to Yuma's opening probably isn't significant enough to affect the state of the genre either way. The movie marks the first widely-released, traditionally gunslinging Western since Open Range in 2003. That picture had greater attendance out of the gate with $16 million adjusted for ticket price inflation at 2,075 sites and it closed with the equivalent of $66 million today.
Proper Westerns are so rare that when a movie has Western trappings, that fact becomes the all-encompassing selling point. Such was the case with 3:10 to Yuma, which added some slick graphics to its action-oriented marketing. The picture also stood out as a vehicle for lead actor Russell Crowe, who has had unusual success in the period action movies Gladiator and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, though his first Western, The Quick and the Dead, was a disappointment.
Also opening, Shoot 'Em Up made a weak $5.7 million at 2,108 locations. Too self-conscious and too much like a video game in its premise, New Line Cinema's over-the-top action picture failed like the studio's recent similar pictures Domino and Running Scared. Faring far worse was The Brothers Solomon, a $10 million Sony comedy that grossed merely $508,601 at 700 venues.
In second for the weekend, Labor Day champion Halloween bled 64 percent to $9.5 million for $43.7 million in 10 days, its drop common for the horror genre. Holding well, Superbad followed with $7.6 million, down 39 percent for $103.2 million in 24 days. In general, holdovers saw standard declines for the frame. Brandon Gray