By Sarah Sluis
The government conspiracy thriller Eagle Eye came in at just under $30 million this week, making it the largest-grossing opener since the first week of August. Shia LaBeouf's people are probably dancing on top of their desks over this one. With lukewarm reviews, LaBeouf's star power certainly had a hand in its box office take. Aside from limited releases Appaloosa ($10,357) and The Duchess ($10,455), it had the highest per-screen average ($8,319).
Coming in with the second-highest per-screen average ($7,764) of the top ten and number four overall, with a total take of $6.5 million, was Fireproof. Given that Box Office Mojo fixed its budget at $500,000, the film is the success of the week. I bet Wall Street would kill--or convert--to make that much money on an investment right about now. The film's success came from its ability to successfully target church groups that would embrace the film's Christian message.
The film revolves around firefighter Captain Caleb Holt (Kirk Cameron). While saving people's lives daily, he can't save his marriage to wife Catherine. Just as the couple seems ready to divorce, Holt's father challenges him to "The Love Dare" and asks him to spend forty days trying to repair his marriage, making it Fireproof. The promotional materials for the film include a book called "The Love Dare," the opportunity to buy a packet to use during sermons or small groups, and all kinds of flyer-type tickets and mini-books. What's more, they are actually charging for use of these materials. While the success of The Passion of the Christ drew a lot of mainstream media attention to church marketing, it's interesting to see how this type of marketing is carried out for smaller films that slip under the radar of big city newspapers, which tend to have smaller populations of churchgoers.
The big loser of the week was Iraqi road trip film The Lucky Ones, which made only $489 per screen and grossed a paltry $208,000. Ouch. The poor performance of this film reminds me of Stop-Loss, another 
returning Iraqi soldier film that failed to reach audiences--and which also had a trailer that tried to toe the line between patriotism and a vague disgust of war. While some war films have performed well during the Iraq war, I think it's fair to draw an analogy to the similarly divisive Vietnam, where war programming did not play well. For me, it's a margin of comfort as a viewer. Seeing people my age dealing with injuries and trauma from a war that infuriates and divides the American people hits a little too close to home. I don't want to see a film that will make me squirm, at least not yet. Moreover, trying to appease those who want to "Support our Troops" by glorifying their experience, versus those who want to "Support our Troops" by bringing them home makes for a difficult plotting and marketing proposition. On a related note, WWII combat film The Miracle of St. Anna also performed poorly, making $3.5 million and finishing at #9. It seems audiences would rather see a pair be framed and hunted by their government in Eagle Eye's comfortably fictional setting than address the issues of war and racism promised by The Lucky Ones and The Miracle of St. Anna.
For complete box office results, click here.
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