It's a hot summer out there, and despite the fact that a movie theater is usually one of the best air conditioned places in town to hang out, audiences still preferred other social activities this Labor Day weekend.
Over the normal three-day weekend (come back tomorrow for the full Labor Day weekend four-day box office top ten breakdown) newcomer The Possession took top billing with a modest $17 million debut. It stayed well ahead of the much marketed and highly anticipated Lawless which broke in at number two to the tune of $9 million after making just over $2 million on Wednesday and Thursday following an early week debut.
I've never in my life heard of the Oogieloves (and am perfectly content to never hear of them again) until this weekend when they became the biggest box office debut loser of all time. Despite opening wide this weekend in more than 2,000 venues, Oogieloves In The BIG Balloon Adventure, a movie apparently designed for the 2-3 year old demographic, made less than $500,000. I suppose that's what you get for launching a theatrical release of a movie whose target audience is a group no one wants to take to a theater. Someone should have reminded them of the value of direct to home video. Oogieloves surpassed the box office failure that was Delgo's opening weekend which saw just $511,000 back in 2008.
Meanwhile, according to Box Office Mojo, The Dark Knight Rises spent the weekend topping the $1 billion mark in global sales. At this rate it's on track to break into the top ten all time biggest international sellers, but just how high is yet to be seen. At this rate it looks to settle in at seventh place, ahead of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ($1.06 billion) and short of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King ($1.12 billion).
