‘Machete’ Edges Out ‘The American’ for Friday Box-Office Lead

Things were neck-and-neck at the top of the Friday box-office with Fox’s Machete barely edging out Focus Features and George Clooney’s The American.

Machete, the B-movie spin-off from the 2007 Grindhouse faux trailer managed $3.89 million on Friday, besting The American by a meager $0.13 million. Tracking on the two pics was relatively similar though The American was looking at a slightly longer road considering it opened on Wednesday where it took in $1.6 million, followed by $1.4 million on Thursday. Taking this into consideration the fact it is holding strong against what will likely be a dramatically front-loaded picture such as Machete is rather impressive.

Following this return the two films will be looking at something around a $12 million three-day weekend and a $15-16 million holiday weekend. This number is pretty much right on track for The American and a little low for expectations on Machete in terms of tracking.

The weekend’s other new wide release was Going the Distance, which was suffering from poor tracking and bad reviews (myself excluded). The Warner Bros. pic managed a fifth place Friday finish with $2.2 million behind Takers and The Last Exorcism. Debuting in the largest number of theaters (3,030) and made for a reported $32 million, the Justin Long and Drew Barrymore romantic comedy only looks to turn about $6 million over the three-day weekend and will be pushing hard to earn $9 million over the Labor Day weekend.

As for the rest of Friday’s numbers I have included them all directly below and Laremy will be here tomorrow with a full three-day recap. However, before I go did any of you venture out to theaters yet this weekend? Anyone take in The American, which I truly with me?

Finally, did any of you go see Machete and if so is there anyone that didn’t have fun with that movie? A lot of people were talking about how much fun they had with Piranha 3D, but I think Machete blows that film – pardon the pun – out of the water.

  1. Machete – $3.89 million
  2. The American – $3.769 million
  3. Takers – $3 million
  4. The Last Exorcism – $2.3 million
  5. Going the Distance – $2.2 million
  6. The Expendables – $1.7 million
  7. The Other Guys – $1.4 million
  8. Eat Pray Love – $1.3 million
  9. Inception – $1.2 million
  10. Nanny McPhee Returns – $867,000

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