Weekend Estimates: Weak Field Gifts The Help Top Spot

August 21, 2011

Four weak debut weekends has gifted The Help a win at the box office as the historical drama posted an impressive 21% decline from last weekend to earn an estimated $20.479 million. The decline in percentage terms was helped by the fact that the film opened on a Wednesday, but it's still an impressive performance. Rise of the Apes help on to second place with $16.3 million in its third weekend, which is perhaps an even better indication of the level of disinterest in the new releases.

Spy Kids 4 came third with about $12 million, ahead of a very disappointing $10 million for Conan the Barbarian, which has a huge way to go to recover its $90 million production budget. Fright Night was even more of a disappointment with just $8.3 million from 3,114 theaters.

Romantic drama One Day also under-performed, picking up $5.1 million from 1,721 theaters. Of the films coming out this week, it stands to have the best legs, but its low per theater average (just under $3,000) means it will likely struggle to hold on to theaters.

Even the limited releases couldn't really help out this weekend, although Red State will earn about $26,000 from a special engagement and Senna is continuing its impressive limited run by averaging over $12,000 in 14 theaters for a second-week $168,994 estimate.

- 3-Day Weekend Estimates
- Friday estimates
- Saturday estimates
- Sunday projections

Bruce Nash,

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Conan the Barbarian, One Day, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Fright Night, Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, The Help, Red State, Senna