‘The Town’ Is Number One at the US Box Office

After getting wonderful reviews with critics and select audiences, Ben Affleck’s “The Town” proved that it is as good as expected, by landing at the top spot of the North American box office over the weekend.

The film, starring Affleck himself, Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall and Blake Lively, proved a major draw for audiences, making $23.8 million in its opening weekend, Box Office Mojo reports.

As E! Online also notes, this is literally Affleck’s first box office win since “Daredevil,” which, as fans may know, was quite a while back.

While “The Town” performed so wonderfully, “I’m Still Here,” the collaboration between Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix failed to rise even to the direst expectations, even though the director admitted the film was not a proper documentary.

“In its second weekend, but first weekend as an admitted work of performance art, I’m Still Here, the younger Affleck’s collaboration with Phoenix, was as weak as its star’s rap skills. The movie grossed $115,000 at 120 theaters for a per-screen average of just $958. And, no, that’s no joke,” E! writes.

It is believed Casey was hoping for a boost ticket sales with his admission of late last week that Phoenix’s so-called career change had been just a “performance,” but that didn’t come to happen.

Newcomer “Easy A,” starring Emma Stone and boasting a budget of just $8 million, was the favorite for the top spot but came out only second, with ticket sales of $18.2 million.

Director M. Night Shyamalan returned on the silver screen with another thriller this weekend, “Devil” and, while it fared ok, it didn’t even come close to initial expectations, making only $12.6 million.

Last week’s number one, “Resident Evil: Afterlife,” fell 3 positions to number 4, making $10.1 million domestically but, E! says, still sold like crazy overseas, where it topped the $100 million mark.

So far, the film has grossed an estimated $147 million worldwide, which means a fifth film is almost certainly happening.

Also over the weekend, Chris Nolan’s “Inception” (which remains a strong contender at the North American box office) and “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” (which was re-released) reached new milestones.

“Inception ($2.02 million; $285.2 million overall) logged its 10th weekend in the Top 10. Eclipse ($205,000) eclipsed $300 million. It’s the first Twilight film to hit that mark. The film got nudged over the finish line with the help of last weekend’s wide rerelease (in honor of Bella’s birthday, of course),” E! informs.

As for the rest of the top 10 movies at the US box office this weekend, these are: “Alpha and Omega” ($9.2 million), “Takers” ($3 million), “The American” ($2.8 million), “Inception” ($2.02 million), “The Other Guys” ($2 million) and “Eat Pray Love” ($1.7 million).