Weekend Box-Office: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Outperforms ‘Haunted House’ and ‘Gangster Squad’

I spent this morning watching the Seattle Seahawks lose in a heartbreaker to the Atlanta Falcons so today’s box-office report is going to be a bit truncated and rushed as a result as we prepare for our live blog of the 2013 Golden Globes, which will be begin very shortly at 5 PM PST / 8 EST.

Before that, however, let’s talk about Kathryn Bigelow‘s Zero Dark Thirty crushing the competition as it the Oscar-nominated thriller added 2,877 theaters this weekend and tallied $24 million and a #1 spot at the box-office. Laremy’s $27 million prediction was a little high, but he had the position right as there was some debate over whether or not it could withstand the newcomers.

Looking over read predictions, Corbin was almost right on the money with a $23.7 million prediction as many thought Gangster Squad would open the victor. Unfortunately, Warner Bros.’ long-delayed gangster flick was unable to make up any ground over the weekend, opening on Friday with $6.7 million and maintaining a decent hold on Saturday only to dip hard on Sunday.

Gangster Squad wasn’t even able to take the #2 position as a result, bringing in $16.7 million, which was bested by the low budget horror parody A Haunted House, which continues to prove low budget horrors (parody or otherwise) are a mean source of profit. Budgeted at $2.5 million, A Haunted House brought in $18.8 million over the three-day and is already in the black.

Elsewhere, last weekend’s #1, Texas Chainsaw 3D, sunk like a stone, dropping 76.3% from last weekend to a ninth place, $5.1 million finish.

As far as Oscar bumps go, Silver Linings Playbook added 65 theaters and took tenth with $5 million and Argo added 319 theaters and brought in $1.2 million. Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln scored the most Academy nominations last week and it brought in 16.6% more than last weekend with $6.3 million and it has now made over $152 million domestically.

The per theater winner was another Best Picture nominee, Michael Haneke’s Amour, which added 12 theaters and is now playing in a whopping 15 where it took in $270,600 for a $18,040 per theater average.

Next weekend sees the release of the Mark Wahlberg, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Russell Crowe thriller Broken City, the Guillermo del Toro-produced horror Mama and The Last Stand starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Anyone want to make any early predictions?

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