'Possession' remains No. 1 at weak box office

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? "The Possession" occupied the top spot at a nearly comatose box office.

The fright flick with Kyra Sedgwick and Jeffrey Dean Morgan playing the parents of a girl possessed by a demon earned $9.5 million in its second outing, the lowest grossing weekend for the box office this year and one of the worst weekends at the box office in a decade. It marked the first time since 2008 that no film managed to crack the $10 million mark.

The weekend after Labor Day is typically the slowest of the year, but this weekend's grosses were down 20 percent over last year when "Contagion" opened in first place with $22.4 million. Total box office revenues are estimated at $67 million, which would make this the worst weekend at the box office since the weekend after 9/11 when revenues were $59.7 million.

"There just wasn't a strong opener," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. "We came off a summer than ended with a whimper. There wasn't any momentum. It just comes down to the movies and the marketplace. There's wasn't some extraneous force keeping people out of the theaters. This crop of movies just didn't have that solid draw."

The bootlegging tale "Lawless" starring Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy and Jessica Chastain kept a lock on the No. 2 position in its second weekend with $6 million, bringing its total haul to $23.5 million, while "The Words" featuring Bradley Cooper as an aspiring writer and Zoe Saldana as his girlfriend debuted in third place with $5 million.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "The Possession," $9.5 million.

2. "Lawless," $6 million.

3. "The Words," $5 million.

4. "The Expendables 2," $4.7 million.

5. "The Bourne Legacy," $4 million.

6. "ParaNorman," $3.8 million.

7. "The Odd Life of Timothy Green," $3.6 million.

8. "The Campaign," $3.5 million.

9. "The Dark Knight Rises," $3.3 million.

10. "2016: Obama's America," $3.3 million.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/possession-remains-no-1-weak-box-office-164539795.html

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