After a somewhat woeful return on films last month, the Columbus Day weekend kicked things back into gear with Martin Scorsese's extremely well-received "The Departed" easily taking the top spot with a stellar $27 million. It was the director's biggest opening, and with the good word of mouth it's expected to follow a successful path similar to "Training Day".
Also hitting well was New Line's prequel to their "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake, the little-promoted horror flick scaring up an impressive $19 million. Despite losing a good chunk from the first film (it opened with $28.1M in 2003), the film has already surpassed its meager $16M budget and looks set to make New Line a nice profit.
Dane Cook comedy "Employee of the Month" also fared on track with an $11 million opening, just behind last week's top opener "Open Season" which fell a modest 32% to gather in a $16 million weekend. Not faring as well were Disney's "The Guardian", who's 46% drop-off does not bode well for their usual word-of-mouth business, or black comedy "School for Scoundrels" which plunged 60%.
On the limited release front "The Queen" reigned strong with a $36,454 per screen taking on 11 screens, more impressive than this week's newcomers "Shortbus" and "Little Children" which both had solid but unauspicious openings at just over the $20,000 per screen take each.
