If you visit The Social Network's page on Facebook you'll find about 66,500 people like it. 66,192 of those are movie critics and all of them think The Social Network is the one of the best movies this year. Despite their crazy attempts to sell you on the movie and convince you that Justin Timberlake deserves an Oscar, the movie only made $23 million this weekend.
That was enough for an easy number one, and not bad for a movie opening in October, but it's a bit of a short sell for a film shot on a $50 million budget. Maybe enough buzz will generate over the week to turn out audiences next weekend, but with feel good Secretariat and Helen Mirren gun-toting action flick Red right around the corner, holding on to a solid share may be a tall order.
Horror/thriller Case 39 and vampire flick Let Me In had to settle for bickering over 7th and 8th place with only $50,000 separating them in early weekend estimates. But no matter who wins, both movies lose. At $5.3 million neither is in range to turn much of a profit against their $20+ million budgets.
Freakonomics banked only $33,000 in seventeen theaters this weekend. That's not a good sign for wide release success should it get that far. In short, Magnolia Films' choice to blow $2.9 million on the project may have been the kind of bizarre economic choice that its film couldn't explain.
For the full weekend estimates, check out the chart below:
| 1. | The Social Network * | $23,000,000 - | Total: $23,000,000 | LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 2,771 |
| 2. | Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole | $10,855,000 - | Total: $30,047,000 | LW: 2 WR: 2 THTRS: 3,575 |
| 3. | Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps | $10,100,000 - | Total: $35,876,000 | LW: 1 WR: 2 THTRS: 3,597 |
| 4. | The Town | $10,000,000 - | Total: $64,307,000 | LW: 3 WR: 3 THTRS: 2,935 |
| 5. | Easy A | $7,000,000 - | Total: $42,428,000 | LW: 4 WR: 3 THTRS: 2,974 |
| 6. | You Again | $5,552,000 - | Total: $16,437,000 | LW: 5 WR: 2 THTRS: 2,548 |
| 7. | Case 39 * | $5,350,000 - | Total: $5,350,000 | LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 2,211 |
| 8. | Let Me In * | $5,300,000 - | Total: $5,300,000 | LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 2,020 |
| 9. | Devil | $3,672,000 - | Total: $27,399,000 | LW: 6 WR: 3 THTRS: 2,392 |
| 10. | Alpha and Omega | $3,000,000 - | Total: $19,025,000 | LW: 8 WR: 3 THTRS: 2,303 |
