27 Sep – As we move into the last quarter of the year, higher quality films turned up in the box office last weekend, such as David Ayer's "End Of Watch", a gritty cop action-drama film not unlike his previous effort, "Steet Kings", in 2008. The film wound up less than US$1 million ahead of "House At The End Of The Street" and "Trouble With The Curve", at US $13.2 million, while the latter two placed second and third respectively. Ayer's film stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña as two police officers from the Los Angeles Police Department who uncover evidence of a Mexican drug cartel's human and drug trafficking, but as the duo continue to investigate, they are met with various threats, caused by the cartels' bounties on them. Meanwhile, "House At The End Of The Street" is directed by Mark Tonderai and stars "The Hungers Games'" Jennifer Lawrence in the lead as Elissa, a girl who moves into a small, upscale, rural town with her mother, only to discover that the couple living the house next door were killed in their beds by their daughter, leaving only their son as the sole survivor, who may be more involved in the affair than most think. Last but not least is Robert Lorenz's "Trouble With The Curve", a sports-drama film starring Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake, about an aging Atlanta Braves baseball scout named Gus Lobel (Eastwood) who is given one last assignment to prove his worth to the organization, and so sets out to do so with his estranged daughter Mickey (Adams).
However, in Malaysia, "End Of Watch" did not open last weekend, so Paul W. S. Anderson's "Resident Evil: Retribution" took the top place again for the third consecutive week. In second place is "Bait", an Australian shark film directed by Kimble Rendall and stars Xavier Samuel, Phoebe Tonkin, Sharni Vinson and Julian McMahon. The film is your average man vs. monster thriller, but its opening success is an example of how marketing plays a role in pulling in a film's box office numbers. Rounding up the top three is "Dredd", which is Pete Travis' take on the the 2000 AD comic strip "Judge Dredd", starring Karl Urban as the eponymous law enforcer given the power of judge, jury and executioner in the vast dystopian metropolis of Mega-City One that lies within a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Alongside rookie Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), Dredd is forced to bring order to a feared 200-story slum and its resident drug lord, Ma-Ma (Lena Headey).
In Singapore, "Resident Evil: Retribution" is still the champion, followed by "The Possession" and "Ted". One could view "Dredd" middling performance as an indictment of Singaporeans' penchant for horror, or an example of how the series' fans just does not make up a large portion of the moviegoers in this country.
For Malaysia, new movies that opened last week were "Untuk Tiga Hari", "The Raid", "Aji Noh Motor", "Heroine", "Sattai", "Chaarulatha" and "Wonderful World".
For Singapore, new movies that opened last week were "Ruby Sparks (2D)", "Dredd", "The Possession", "Savages", "My Dog Dou Dou" and "Heroine".
