Tops at the Box Office: 'The Possession' scares up soft Labor Day weekend victory

1. The Possession- $17.7M
Although this was probably the lightest week for promising new releases in quite awhile, we've seen a number of low-rent horrors hitting theaters in the last couple of weeks. So it's a little surprising to see the latest of the group perform this well, especially since it arguably packs the weakest starpower of them all. It probably didn't hurt to have horror maestro Sam Raimi's name at the top of the bill, here serving in a producer capacity. Having already earned back more than its meager $14M production budget, the film may not do gangbusters at the box office but it's certainly a success.

2. Lawless- $9.67M
The Weinstein Company may have screwed themselves placing Lawless at the tail end of summer, where people are still in popcorn flick mode. While Lawless is certainly brutal with more blood than moonshine flowing through it, the trailers and TV spots positioned it as more of a prestige film. Clearly, people were confused and chose to just stay away altogether, leaning on the comfort of a rather straight-forward horror like The Possession, or braindead violence in The Expendables 2. This also comes as another knock against Tom Hardy, who has yet to find a film to call his own that people will pay to see.
3. The Expendables 2- $8.8M/$66.1M
4. The Bourne Legacy- $7.2M/$96.2M
Following a similar box office tract as Matt Damon's The Bourne Identity, which should make Universal very happy.
5. ParaNorman- $6.5M/$38M
6. The Odd Life of Timothy Green- $6M/$35.9M
7. The Dark Knight Rises- $5.9M/$431.2M
8. The Campaign- $5.4M/$73M
9. 2016: Obama's America- $5.1M/$18.2M
jThere's a problem when The Campaign has more political insight, honesty, and authenticity than your racist hit piece documentary does.
10. Hope Springs- $4.7M/$52M

And in the "LOL" debut of the week, the horrifying kiddie film Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure opened at over 2000(!!!) theaters and only registered a hair under $450K. That makes for a $207 per site average, a disaster of epic proportions. Parents were obviously just as disturbed by those creepy costumes and the cultish singing promised in those nauseatingly bright TV spots.