Weekend Box Office: The Devil Inside booed all the way to the bank

By Scott Tobias | January 9, 2012 | 2:28pm

Aux Features Film

All the warning signs were there: A horror film. Opening the first weekend in January. Not screened for critics. Yet the docu-style Exorcist knock-off The Devil Inside disappointed audiences to the tune of $34.5 million—and, according to many reports, was booed lustily, even by people who saw advance screenings for free. Still, the incredible numbers (the third highest January opening ever, in fact) for this $1 million production has made that “F” CinemaScore to irrelevant, though maybe viewers won’t be suckered in by The Devil Inside 2: Armed And Fabulous. (Okay, who are we kidding? Of course they’ll pay for the sequel, too.) The Devil Inside took advantage of a wide berth—it’s the only wide-release film to open on the 6th—and Christmas holdovers Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, Sherlock Holmes: Game Of Shadows, and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo all proved durable runners-up, with no worse than a 32% drop-off for any of them.

Not much happening in limited release. Very few openings and no reports on those that did. In their second weeks, the Sundance favorite Pariah and the A.V. Club favorite A Separation are both doing steady business, with the former at $10,145 on 11 screens and the latter at $16,100 on six screens. And a six-figure cumulative for Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut, In The Land Of Blood And Honey, seems likely next week, though it doesn’t look likely to inch much higher, despite the sycophancy of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.