Zero Dark Thirty kills its target at the box office

Zero Dark Thirty the film based on the CIA espionage operative about the hunt for a certain terrorist mastermind took the top spot at the box office with $24 million. Benefitting from its Oscar & Golden Gloves Best Picture nominations (plus the outrage of its director, Kathryn Bigelow being left out of the Best director category) the film might be headed for a final run of $95-100 million. In an unexpected turn of events, the comedy A Haunted House took the second spot with $18.8 million. No one saw that coming and it was expected that either Gang Squad (third spot with $16.7 million) or Django Unchained (fourth spot with $11 million) would had taken the #2 position. Speaking of the Tarantino western: it already is that director's highest grossing film to date, but if we take in account inflation, Pukp Fiction is still his most successful by a long shot. Les Miserables drops to the fifth spot with $10.1 million despite its oscar nominations. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey had a 48% drop with $9 million for a now total of $278 million in domestic box office grosses. It is expected to finish its run with about $300 million. Steven Spielberg's Lincoln on the other had improved its numbers after the Oscar nominations and earned $6.3 million in its 10th week and surpassed the $150 million mark ($152m) becoming Spielberg's #12 movie to surpass that amount. No other director has such track record (in a distant #2, Spielberg's friend & protege, Robert Zemeckis, has 6 films that passed that mark while Michael, Tim Burton, Peter Jackson andChris Columbus each has 5). Crashing badly from the #1 spot last week to the #9 this week with a 76% drop, Texas Chainsaw 3D was only able to grab $5.1 million from unsuspecting audiences who didn't read the reviews nor got the word of mouth of how awful this film is. Look for it to exit the top ten next week. It is still a hit since it made a killing on its first three days with a total now of $30 million. In other news, Skyfall is on its way to reach the $300 million mark this week, maybe by Tuesday. Congratulations, Mr. Bond!