Several films that opened weakly the previous weekend predictably tumbled down the chart.
The big faller When a film opens weakly, it typically drops heavily the following week, and disease drama Extraordinary Measures was no exception.
All opened weakly, especially considering the distributors in all three cases had gone to the effort of opening them two days early, on Wednesday, a privilege usually only granted to films with significant commercial ambition.
The $178m film, which was comparatively innovative for a blockbuster, story-wise, opened weakly indeed ($28.8m) and eventually took $369.2m, only just making its costs back once prints and advertising are factored in.
HONG KONG — A 7 percent stock market sell-off in Tokyo led to moderate declines in equity markets across Europe and Asia on Thursday, and Wall Street opened weakly, amid concerns about global growth and uneasiness about central bank actions.
Although the show opened weakly with Mr. Ford's only stab at vivid color -- disco-pink dresses ruched down the neckline -- he quickly moved to the peasant blouses, worn mostly with slim trousers, that gave the day clothes a fetching boho romance missing from the fall 2001 collections.
The opera opens weakly, with Clive Bayley's stiff-backed, middle-European Bluebeard seen cajoling, almost forcing Michaela Martens's rather helpless Judith out of the dimly lit street into the labyrinthine passages of his "castle", before Edward Gardner has begun the orchestral introduction.
Billy Bob Thornton's adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel "All the Pretty Horses" opened weakly on Christmas Day; the mountain-climbing thriller "Vertical Limit" drew smaller-than-anticipated crowds after its early-December opening; and Disney's sequel, "102 Dalmatians," had a relatively lackluster Thanksgiving bow.
Tri-Star's "Loose Cannons" opened weakly, mustering only $2.2 million in the weekend derby.
