Weekend Box Office

Labor over these numbers!

Labor Day is the only 3 day weekend that reliably delivers NOTHING to the studios. Here's why: September is an enormous dead spot as people focus on going back to school or stocking up on supplies to make it through the harsh winter. They don't go to movies in September. Thus, anything you released this weekend had three days to make its money, and then it's gonna drop like a stone. If you had any confidence you'd have put it out a month ago or you're holding it until October.

So coming in at #2 is Focus Pictures' The Debt, making only $10 million. Then at #3, goofy SF concept Apollo 18, making almost $9 million; at #4 is Shark Night 3D (about Tuesdays at the bar down the street, I think) which only made $8 million. And those are the highlights. Yeah, and The Help came in on top again with $14 million. Some people at Buena Vista are keeping their jobs through the fall!

Worth looking: Robert Redford's The Conspiritor is claiming $24.00 one one screen. That's one couple, or two very, very lonely people.