“Resident Evil: Extinction” Tops Box Office
Posted September 23, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Resident Evil brand is anything but extinct, and ” Resident Evil: Extinction” proved that over the weekend when the latest installment of flesh-hungry zombie video game adaptation topped the box office with a $24 million debut.
The film stars Milla Jovovich, and the three-quel quickly surpassed the debuts of its two predecessors.
“Until the next,” joked Rory Bruer, Sony’s head of distribution. “It absolutely would not surprise me considering the success of the franchise that they find a way to come up with another. It’s a real possibility.”
In second was a Lionsgate’s ” Good Luck Chuck,” which features Jessica Alba and Dane Cook in a romantic comedy about a man jinxed at finding true love. It debuted in second place with $14 million despite a universal thrashing by critics.
The previous weekend’s champ, ” The Brave One,” fell to No. 3 with $7.4 million, raising its total to $25.1 million, while Brad Pitt’s highly-anticipated ” The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” and Sean Penn’s ” Into the Wild” each opened strongly in limited release.
Perhaps even more impressively, Focus Features’ ” Eastern Promises,” with Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts in a drama set among Russian mobsters in London, expanded nationwide and earned the No. 5 spot with $5.7 million.
All top five movies had R ratings, which analysts point out is unusual in the current movie market.
“The Rs have it this weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. “That makes sense in this fall season, when grittier, more intense films are released.”
Here’s the rest of the weekend’s top 10, with all figures estimated according to Media By Numbers LLC.
1. “Resident Evil: Extinction,” $24 million.
2. “Good Luck Chuck,” $14 million.
3. “The Brave One,” $7.4 million.
4. “3:10 to Yuma,” $6.35 million.
5. “Eastern Promises,” $5.7 million.
6. “Sydney White,” $5.3 million.
7. “Mr. Woodcock,” $5 million.
8. “Superbad,” $3.1 million.
9. “The Bourne Ultimatum,” $2.8 million.
10. “Dragon Wars,” $2.5 million.
