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This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

Arts & Entertainment

Box Office Review: That Was It?

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Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures

Despite being hyped by its evil corporate owner AEG, Michael Jackson's This Is It only earned a decent-but-hardly-great $21.3M at the box office this weekend. It was enough to win the weekend, though Paranormal Activity made a strong charge at second place ($16.5M | $84.7M). After that it was all hold-overs. The unusually robust Law Abiding Citizen continued to do well ($7.3M | $51.3M) as did the moderately funny Couples Retreat ($6M | $86.6M). The vile and stupid Saw VI rounded out the top 5 with $5.5M ($22.8M).

The second half of the top 10 was kicked off by the fantastic, fantastical Where the Wild Things Are ($5M | $61.8M). It was followed by the dull The Stepfather ($3.4M | $24.7M), the dull Astro Boy ($3M | $10.8M) and the, uh, dull Amelia ($3M | $8.3M). The well-intentioned failure Cirque du Freak rounded out the top 10 ($2.8M | $10.5M). In limited release, neither Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day ($6794 per theater) nor Gentlemen Broncos ($5000 per) were able to make much of a dent at the box office.

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