Labor Day audiences turn out for 'The American'

By Sarah Sluis

Machete and The American were neck-and-neck throughout the four-day Labor Day weekend. Machete led during its debut Friday, earning $3.9 million to The American's $3.84 million. After Friday, the George

Clooney thinking man/spy film pulled ahead, rising Saturday and Sunday and finishing the four-day weekend with $16.3 million. Machete, the Mexploitation picture from Robert Rodriguez, never matched its Friday night debut and finished with $14 million. Labor Day weekend is notoriously slow, however, so both of these films performed well in terms of their time slots and genres.

Debuting in fourth place, Going the Distance brought in a lackluster $8.9 million over the weekend. This makes the movie a loser even among romantic comedy bedfellows like Love Happens and The Switch (both of which were probably worse than this one, starring Drew

Barrymore and Justin Long). The movie's release date was changed from August 27th to September 3rd at the last minute, which could have affected grosses. The American and Going the Distance also drew large portions of their audience from the 25+ and 35+ crowd. For a movie like The American, that's fine, but a romantic comedy needs support from younger audiences, who didn't seem to show up in enough force.

As the summer movie season wraps up, several movies actually increased from their previous week. Family movies and word-of-mouth hits were the biggest beneficiaries. Despicable Me, Toy Story 3 and The Sorcerer's Apprentice increased from last week, even without taking the holiday into account. With the extra day added in, the special effects movie of the summer, Inception, boosted its take 20% along with cop comedy The Other Guys, which went up 5.8%.

Among limited releases, a Chinese remake of the Coen Brothers movie Blood Simple, A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop, opened to a $7,000 per-screen average playing on five screens. Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 yielded a $3,000 per-screen average playing on over thirty screens. The prior film, Mesrine: Death Instinct, opened in late August to a $5,000 per-screen average, so the second film may be a tougher sell.

This Friday will be slow at the box office, with Resident Evil: Afterlife (3D) leading releases and teen sex comedy The Virginity Hit opening under the radar in a limited release.