'The Help' Moves Up to Top Spot at US B-O

'Spy Kids 4', 'Conan' and 'Fright Night' dusted away

AUG 22, 2011 - It was a box-office bloodbath for Conan the Barbarian and Fright Night among other releases over the weekend. On the bright side, The Help climbed to the top spot, due to a combination of a strong hold and those weak new releases, while Rise of the Planet of the Apes took second.

The Help eased 21 percent to an estimated US$20.5 million, lifting its total to US$71.8 million in 12 days. It marked the first time since early January that a movie has risen to No. 1 after previously debuting lower. The last instance was True Grit, but the more thematically comparable The Blind Side also did it. The Help has dusted Julie & Julia and Eat Pray Love, the past female-driven August book adaptations that inspired its release, by a wide margin.

Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, mustered just US$12 million on about 4,400 screens at 3,295 locations. It's the worst-performing Spy Kids movie by far, grossing a little over a third of the last one, Spy Kids 3D: Game Over (and trailing even further in attendance). It even fell short of Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore from last summer. Conan the Barbarian went the way of past August fantasy action movies and flopped hard, grabbing less interest than even The 13th Warrior.

Here are the Top 5 North American B-O studio estimates for Aug 19-21, 2011 weekend, in terms of rank, (previous week ranking), Movie name (studio), Weekend takings in USD, (Cumulative gross, USD) and week on chart, courtesy of Boxofficemojo. (US$1=RM3)

1. (2) The Help (Buena Vista) $20.5 million ($71.8 million) 2

2. (1) Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Fox) $16.3 million ($133.8 mil) 3

3. (-) Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (Dimension) $12.0 million ($12.0 mil) 1

4. (-) Conan the Barbarian (Lionsgate) $10.0 million ($10.0 million) 1

5. (4) The Smurfs (Sony / Columbia) $8.0 million ($117.7 million) 4