Weekend Box Office: Possessed Girl, Heist Film Fight for Top Spot

By Chris Kavan - 08/29/10 at 07:54 PM CT

In a close race, it looks like exorcism will eek out a victory over bank robbers. The Last Exorcism earned an estimated $21.3 million while Takers is right behind with $21 million to take the top two spots at the box office.

While it took the top spot, Last Exorcism couldn't match the similarly-themed Exorcism of Emily Rose, which took in $30.1 on opening. Takers, meanwhile, opened towards the top of its limited genre.

Top earners The Expendables and Eat, Pray, Love continued to bleed out in 3rd and 4th place, dropping 44% and 42.2% respectively. Expendables hit $82 million while Eat, Pray, Love broke the $60 million mark.

The Avatar phenomena seems to have passed as the re-release special edition couldn't even break the top 10 with a 12th-place opening of $4 million. Still, considering that a bare-bones edition has been available for Blu-Ray viewing for months, and everyone and their dog already watched it, $4 million may not be so bad.

Taking the biggest hits of the week, Vampires Suck dropped nearly 57% to land in 6th place with $5.3 million while Piranha 3D dropped 57.4% to round out the top 10 with $4.3 million. Vampires Suck has managed to surpass its budget, however, Piranha 3D may struggle to hit its $24 million cost.

Overall business continues to lag a bit from last year, as totals were down 8% across the board. With Labor Day weekend coming up, it should be interesting to see if newcomers The American and Machete can reverse the trend.