'Most Popular' award goes to 'Social Network'

By Sarah Sluis

Combining a near-perfect review record with a $23 million opening weekend, The Social Network is well on its way to becoming a front-runner at the Oscars this year--though it's still a little early in the race. The

lead-up to the opening included intense speculation on the story's realism. In what was considered a PR counter-strategy to the more negative portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder appeared on "Oprah" and donated $100 million to New Jersey schools. This movie truly has four-quadrant appeal. Males and females provided equal support, and under-25 and over-25 audiences turned out almost equally. The latter group should prop up returns in coming weekends, as older viewers make their way to theatres.

Case 39 and Let Me In both disappointed, coming in seventh ($5.35 million) and eighth ($5 million) place, respectively. The first, starring Renee

Zellweger, had been shelved since 2006, a datedness that did no favors to the already well-trod child-demon genre. Let Me In, a remake of the Swedish film Let the Right One In, may have been too original for its own good. Horror audiences may have been turned off by its lack of big scares and focus on characterization, while drama-seeking audiences may have been alienated by the vampire/horror link.

The rest of the top ten dropped in just the 30-40% range. Including weekday grosses, many of the films have been adding an amount equivalent to their opening weekend every week of their release. In second place, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole earned $10.8 million for a total of $30 million, nearly double its $16 million opening weekend. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and The Town each added around $10 million to their totals. Easy A, which had a $17 million opening weekend three weeks ago, has since risen to a cumulative gross of $42 million. While the fall movie season has brought lower opening weekends, these films have been able to sustain their earnings longer, since the competition isn't as tough as in the summer.

Moving to specialty releases, Catfish amassed the most dough, accruing $607,000 and improving 34% over last week as it more than doubled the amount of theatres in its release. In its second week, Waiting for "Superman" shot up 192%, moving from 4 to 34 theatres while still keeping its per-theatre average above $10,000. Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger went up 44% as it expanded from 6 to 29 theatres, averaging $8,000 per screen. Never Let Me Go shows signs that it isn't catching on. In its third week, it dipped 23% even as it added 17 theatres for a total of 43 screens. Freakonomics' debut failed to ignite. The documentary, which is based on a bestselling book, earned just $1,900 per screen at 17 theatres. The movie had been in release on iTunes and on-demand for a month, so perhaps the most interested audiences already sought out and watched the film.

On Friday, Disney's feel-good horse racing film, Secretariat, will leave the gate along with romantic comedy Life as We Know It and teen horror flick My Soul to Take.