The South African Movie District 9 Is Number One Grosser In The US This Weekend

d 4:31 p.m. EDT, Sun August 16, 2009

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By John Young

(Entertainment Weekly) -- In what feels like a box-office weekend from "The Twilight Zone," a low-budget and critically acclaimed movie with no stars and an unknown director managed to top the charts.

"District 9," the alien action pic produced by Peter Jackson, crushed the competition grossing $37 million.

"District 9," the alien action pic produced by Peter Jackson and directed by the 29-year-old Neill Blomkamp ? who shot the film in Johannesburg, South Africa, of all places -- crushed the competition by grossing $37 million, according to early estimates.

Audiences clearly enjoyed what they saw too: "District 9" has already soared to No. 78 onIMDb's top 250 movies list, although it'll obviously drop some as the initial euphoria wears off.

Second place went to "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," which dropped 59 percent in its second weekend but still managed to recruit $22.5 million. The $175 million action movie should pass $100 million domestically by Monday.

"The Time Traveler's Wife" materialized into third place with $19.2 million in its debut weekend, proving that there is a market for watching Eric Bana disappear. Rounding out the top 5 were "Julie & Julia" (No. 4 with $12.4 million) and "G-Force" (No. 5 with $6.9 million), respectively.

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Also opening wide was a trio of movies that failed to make a significant dent on the box office. "The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard," a cars-salesmen comedy starring Jeremy Piven, barely registered on the mercury thermometer by earning $5.4 million.

"Ponyo," the 10th film by Japan's animation auteur Hayao Miyazaki, grossed $3.5 million on 927 screens. While that amount represents Miyazaki's best opening weekend in America, it's still fish feed compared to "Ponyo's" worldwide gross of $187 million.

The music comedy "Bandslam" won't be getting any requests for encores after making only $2.3 million from more than 2,000 screens ? even the promise of seeing the "Taylor Lautner takes off his shirt" trailer of The "Twilight" Saga: New Moon couldn't save the Vanessa Hudgens movie.

In limited release, the Jimmy Page/The Edge/Jack White music documentary "It Might Get Loud" opened promisingly, grossing $101,000 from just seven theaters. And "500 Days of Summer" continues to cement its title as "the indie breakout of the summer" by charming $3 million more

The Movie District 9

I finally got Elena to agree on a show we would both like. She opted for District 9. When we arrived in the theater's parking garage, it was packed with cars. Elena commented that it was a good sign that the recession was over. I warned her not to come to that conclusion too quickly.

We had arrived at the theater with prepaid tickets. We still had to wait a long time to get up to the ticket window and get our tickets recorded. We then got the bad news that all performances were sold out and we would have to wait 1.5 hours to get in to see the movie. We went around to other theaters and caught parts of other films. When it came time to go to theater 3 for the showing, we found ourselves in long lines with security all about. We finally got seated.

After all of the preliminaries we know well in movie theaters, the film began. WHAT AN INCREDIBLE AND POWERFUL FILM!!!! The South African film industry should be very proud of this film. It is a film we will long remember and treasure. It had beautiful writing, cinematography, acting and special affects. I have been a science fiction film buff for over 50 years. It is hard to please me. This film dazzled me!!!!

Even if you disagree with some of the content, all of you South Africans should be very proud of this film that I am sure will be a big money maker and also become a cult classic!!!