Weekend Box Office

By Genevieve Koski | August 17, 2009 | 1:00pm

Aux Features Film

In a weekend saturated with new films opening in wide release—five, to be exact—the scrappy sci-fi actioner District 9 led the pack, debuting at No. 1 with a higher-than-projected $37 million. The Time Traveler’s Wife came out of the gate strong as well, with $19.21 million—enough for the No. 3 spot, behind last week’s top earner, G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra, whose 59 percent drop from last week still shook out to $22.5 million. Drecky Jeremy Piven comedy The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard had a less stellar opening, coming it at No. 6 with $5.35 million, while the Disney/Hayao Miyazaki animated flick Ponyo barely cracked the top 10, landing at No. 9 with $3.51 million. The weekend’s final new release, Bandslam, hardly made a ripple with $2.25 million, landing it at No. 13.

Those films that remained in the top 10 held up remarkably well in the face of so much new blood. Julie & Julia fell only two spots to No. 4 with $12.4 million, while G-Force dropped only 30 percent to No. 5 with $6.91 million. Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince fell slightly harder in its fifth week, dropping 42 percent to No. 7 with $5.16 million—attributable in part to its being pulled from nearly 700 theaters. The Ugly Truth took No. 8 with $4.5 million, while (500) Days Of Summer fell one spot to No. 10 with $3.03 million, despite being added to 231 new theaters.