LOS ANGELES - After two weeks on top with "The Expendables," Lionsgate looks to make it three in a row as their horror film "The Last Exorcism" debuts on midnight Thursday. Poised to earn over $15 million this weekend, it will finally take a possessed young girl to scare the devil out of Stallone's tough guys and knock them out of their first-place position.
The ensemble cast of Sony's "Takers" also promises to do some damage, with Paul Walker, Chris Brown, Matt Dillon and company looking to heist close to $15 million in revenue and, as if we didn't have enough already, add even more testosterone to the theatrical marketplace.
This leaves third place to "The Expendables," with what should be an $8.5 million to $9 million third weekend haul and a total domestic take of just over $80 million by Sunday night. A solid late-summer action hit, the grizzled stars of the film have proven to be surprisingly potent at attracting both male and female audiences to theatres.
Sony's "Eat Pray Love" will likely remain in the top five with a drop in the mid-50 per cent range and a weekend gross of around $5.6 million. As it crossed the $50 million mark on Tuesday, the Julia Roberts film is showing solid staying power with female audiences, despite the critical jabs it has endured.
Fifth place will prove to be another box office brawl between "Vampires Suck," "Lottery Ticket" and "Piranha 3D." Each should take 50 per cent to 60 per cent second-weekend drops and thus find themselves in a very crowded basement in the $4 to $5 million range.
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Paul Dergarabedian is president of the Box Office Division of Hollywood.com. and has been providing box office information to The Associated Press for nearly two decades.
