'Contagion' tops weekend B.O.

'Contagion'In its domestic debut frame, Warner Bros.' epidemic ensembler "Contagion" won top B.O. honors by getting an thought $23.millions of from three,222 locations, including 254 in Imax. Pic beat Disney-DreamWorks' three-time champion "The Help,In . throughout its fifth frame collected enough ($8.7 million) to put second for just about any cume of $137.millions of.Overseas, Sony's "The Smurfs" held on the top place due to its fifth straight week, grossing $14.9 million for just about any cume of $321.2 million. But holdovers like "Pals with Benefits" did well, growing to major areas. "Benefits," also in the new the new sony, designed a good weekend take of $10.2 million, driven by bows inside the U.K., France and Germany pic's cume showed up at $29.2 million in four days."Contagion" opened up up day and date in six areas - Italia being really the only major territory - getting a weekend gross of $2.millions of.The Warner pic, which acquired $2.3 million from Imax (or 10% of the Stateside bow), had plenty of steam beginning the weekend, because so many B.O. bloggers expected the pic to win getting a debut around $20 million-$25 million."Contagion," toplining a topnotch cast including Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Marion Cotillard, beat two other studio wide releases: Lionsgate's "Warrior" bowed below anticipation with $5.6 000 0000, while Sony's R-rated laffer "Bucky Larson: Born to become Star" acquired a dismal $1.5 million.The frame's top two game game titles, because both versions were co-funded by Participant Media, hooked mostly adult audiences, a boon demo for late August and publish-Labor Day box office.In comparison, "Bucky Larson" was prone to skew heavily toward males under 25 (The brand new the new sony didn't conduct exit polls), though "Warrior" saw a somewhat even split between auds over and under 25. Really, the 2nd film made 51% of the opening from adult moviegoers - a statistic that Lionsgate distribution topper David Spitz qualities to positive reactions from advanced tests and good reviews."It's good being throwing the initial punch available on the market place," Spitz mentioned, mentioning for the usual packed fall choice of adult-skewing photos. "The procedure all along wound up being to determine ourselves one of the primary important fall dramas."With "Contagion," Warner professional V . p . and general sales director Rob Goldstein mentioned he slightly underrated the film's weekend estimate, since some auds might stay home for your 9/11 anni. (Goldstein mentioned the film might have to go up by roughly $200,000 with Monday's actuals.) Contact Andrew Stewart at andrew.stewart@variety.com