From ew [excerpt], Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps won a weekend that started off with a bang but ended up weaker than predicted. The Oliver Stone-directed sequel to his 1987 classic generated $19 million for the frame, off from the low $20 million it was expected to gross. The Shia LaBeouf, Michael Douglas-starrer is still a big success for Stone, though, as it marks the veteran director’s highest opening weekend. It also far surpassed Warner Bros. animated owl pic, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. The Zack Snyder-directed film, which was expected to cross the $20 million mark this weekend, only earned $16.3 million for the frame. Despite the dearth of kid’s fare in the marketplace recently, and the extra bells and whistles Guardians offered with 3-D and IMAX, the film failed to bring in the families.
Audiences, however, liked the owl flick far more than Wall Street. According to exit pollster Cinemascore, audiences gave Guardians an A-, while Wall Street only generated a B-.
Some of the most impressive performances for the frame went to last weekend’s holdovers. The Town saw a weekend haul of $16 million, for a total gross of $49 million. The Ben Affleck-directed heist film seems to really be catching on. It will be interesting to see how it fares next weekend when The Social Network bows nationwide. Easy A also scored a nice gross its second weekend in theaters. The Emma Stone-starrer fell only 40 percent for a take of $10.7 million. The $8 million production has now earned $32.8 million in just ten days of release.
