'Possession' wins long weekend, and 'Oogieloves' sets new record for worst opening

The Labor Day weekend is usually a quiet one at the box office, and this year was no exception. The Possession scared up $21.3 million over the four-day period, performing well for the time period. The horror movie actually posted the second-best debut ever for the end-of-the-summer
holiday. Audiences gave the Jewish-themed devil possession a "B" rating, which is good for a genre that usually tops out in the "B+" range.

The Weinstein Co. made a wise decision with Lawless, the Prohibition-set picture that earned $13 million over the long weekend. Despite the top cast, which includes Shia LaBeouf, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska, Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce and Tom Hardy, I wasn't so warm on the super-violent picture.
Rotten Tomatoes critics gave is a 65% positive rating, while Metacritic had a lower 58% rating. Even the good reviews were full of caveats. An opening on the Wednesday before Labor Day has been a hot placement for adult-themed pictures in the past two years. Lawless opened ahead of The Debt (which had a five-day total of $14.7 million to Lawless' $15.1 million), but behind The American, which earned $19.8 million during the same period in 2010.

The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure unseated 2008's Delgo from its #1 spot on the list of worst openings on more than 2,000 screens. The preschooler-targeted feature earned $601,000 over the four-day period. Its per-screen average of $278 would put an average of ten people in a theatre per day--which
means just one or two people showed up at each screening. That's pretty bad, especially for a movie that encourages viewing tykes to get up and dance.

2016: Obama's America stayed in the top ten with another $5.5 million as it added another 656 theatres. So far, the conservative picture is holding similar to its left-of-center counterparts, like Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.

Hope Springs, which held on to the last spot in the top ten, is confirmed as a sleeper success. Pulling in $4.7 million, the Meryl Streep-led picture has earned $53 million to date. The week-to-week drop tightened up from the 30% range to just 17% over the three-day period. Strong holds like this week's will give this light-hearted romance an extremely long tail.

The fun and irreverent For A Good Time, Call... gambled a bit with a wider, 23-screen release. The $8,000 per-screen average exceeds all of the movies in the top ten, but it's on the low side
for specialty releases. However, most specialty releases only open on a couple of screens, so the future of this comedy is harder to gauge.

Flying Swords of Dragon Gate posted a similar per-screen average, $8,300, opening on fifteen screens. Because the release was in 3D and IMAX, which charge higher prices, this Chinese epic actually performed a bit worse than For A Good, Time, Call... Still, America is probably one of the smaller markets for the fight scene-heavy feature, which has already earned many times that in Southeast Asian markets.

This Friday, an author steals an unknown's work in The Words, Bachelorette moves from VOD to theatres, and guns are drawn in The Cold Light of Day.