--- title: Box Office: Clooney, Machete and the Summer That Was description: The good news for George Clooney: for the first time in his career, a movie in which he solo-starred opened No.1 at the weekend box... canonical: https://time.com/archive/6911061/box-office-clooney-machete-and-the-summer-that-was/ author: Richard Corliss article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2010-09-06T04:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-22T16:19:16.947Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Box Office: Clooney, Machete and the Summer That Was og:description: The good news for George Clooney: for the first time in his career, a movie in which he solo-starred opened No.1 at the weekend box... og:url: https://time.com/archive/6911061/box-office-clooney-machete-and-the-summer-that-was/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2c44fea36ff6e84f/698a4b7d457a521f50d69282/360_clooney_0906.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 360 og:image:height: 203 og:image:alt: 360_clooney_0906.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Box Office: Clooney, Machete and the Summer That Was twitter:description: The good news for George Clooney: for the first time in his career, a movie in which he solo-starred opened No.1 at the weekend box... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2c44fea36ff6e84f/698a4b7d457a521f50d69282/360_clooney_0906.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) # Box Office: Clooney, Machete and the Summer That Was > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Richard Corliss](https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/) Sep 6, 2010 4:00 AM UTC  Director Anton Corbijn, left, and George Clooney during the filming of The American Director Anton Corbijn, left, and George Clooney during the filming of The American Giles Keyte / Focus Features / AP by [Richard Corliss](https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/) Sep 6, 2010 4:00 AM UTC The good news for George Clooney: for the first time in his career, a movie in which he solo-starred opened No.1 at the weekend box office. The bad news: his artsy thriller, _The American_, earned a mere $13 million in North American theaters in the first three days of the four-day Labor Day frame, according to early studio estimates. This is often the lowest-grossing weekend of the year, so no one was expecting _Toy Story 3_ numbers; but the $13 million, if it’s certified in the final figures, would be the lowest winning tally for a movie in its opening weekend since _Bangkok Dangerous_ exactly two years ago. Two more bits of bad news for Mr. Dreamboat: early viewers polled by CinemaScore gave _The American_ a D-minus grade — we didn’t know CinemaScore markings went that low — and Clooney’s only star competition was — who? — Danny Trejo. You know, Danny Trejo, the longtime stunt man, gnarly supporting actor and second cousin to Austin auteur Robert Rodriguez. _Machete_, Rodriguez’s vivid Latino action-splatter-comedy, features Trejo as an ex-Federale trying to clean up the corrupt Texas establishment and make the state safe for illegal immigrants. The movie had loud buzz, pulled a worthy 71% rating in Rotten Tomatoes’ survey of critics’ reviews and seemed poised to show fans of _The Expendables_ how entertaining an R-rated adventure starring really old guys could be. (Trejo is 66, _The Expendables_‘ Sylvester Stallone 64.) Yet _Machete_ took in only $11.3 million from Friday to Sunday; and Rodriguez’s plans to make _Machete_ sequels now look loonily optimistic. Another fanboy fave film bites the dust. [(See TIME’s 2008 cover story on George Clooney.)](https://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1714996,00.html) Here are the Sunday estimates of this weekend’s top-grossing pictures in North American theaters, as reported by Box Office Mojo: 1\. _The American_, $12.97 million, first weekend; $16.1 million, first five days 2\. _Takers_, $11.45 million; $37.9 million, second week 3\. _Machete_, $11.3 million, first weekend 4\. _The Last Exorcism_, $7.6 million; $32.5 million, second week 5\. _Going the Distance_, $6.9 million, first weekend 6\. _The Expendables_, $6.6 million; $92.1 million, fourth week 7\. _The Other Guys_, $5.4 million; $106.9 million, fifth week 8\. _Eat Pray Love_, $4.85 million; $68.95 million, fourth week 9\. _Inception_, $4.5 million; $277.1 million, eighth week 10\. _Nanny McPhee Returns_, $3.6 million; $22.4 million, third week **The Summer, in Sum** The four months of the 2010 movie summer — the way Hollywood figures it, the season begins in early May and ends Labor Day — hewed to form. The 10 top-grossing pictures at domestic theaters included the usual suspects: four sequels, one remake, three animated features, five movies for the kiddie market, an Adam Sandler comedy and, when _The Other Guys_ overtakes _Salt_ in the next week or so, a Will Ferrell comedy. Though women constituted the bulk of the audience for _The Twilight Saga: Eclipse_, the only other film with a female lead to earn more than $100 million at home was Angelina Jolie’s _Salt_, and that was a red-meat espionage thriller for the male market. [(Read “Review: George Clooney’s Ugly _American_.”)](https://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2015240,00.html) On the upside, the official surprises were: that _Inception_ lived up to its pre-release hype and attracted not just guys addicted to brainy video games but the wide audience; that _Despicable Me_, a CGI cartoon made from a fresh story on a modest budget by a new animation studio, hit the bull’s eye; and that _The Karate Kid_ had the same drawing power in 2010 that the original did in 1984\. The big box-office underachievers were Ridley Scott’s _Robin Hood_ with Russell Crowe, the _Sex and the City_ sequel and producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s attempt to create a _Pirates_\-like franchise with _Prince of Persia_. All finished in the $90-million-to-$105-million range in North America and were considered flops. The big 10 of summer, in North American theaters, as of this weekend: 1\. _Toy Story 3_, $408.1 million 2\. _Iron Man 2_, $312.1 million 3\. _The Twilight Saga: Eclipse_, $298.7 million 4\. _Inception_, $277.1 million 5\. _Despicable Me_, $240.3 million 6\. _Shrek Forever After_, $238.4 million 7\. _The Karate Kid_, $175.9 million 8\. _Grown Ups_, $159.4 million 9\. _The Last Airbender_, $131.2 million 10\. _Salt_, $115.2 million But foreigners go to the movies too, and this summer a lot of them paid to see _Robin, Sex_ and _Prince_. Each of these films took in at least $100 million more abroad than in North America. Even the perceived flop du flops, Tom Cruise’s _Knight & Day_, which earned half the take of Sandler’s _Grown Ups_ in the domestic market, made more than twice as much in foreign climes; the two films’ worldwide take is about the same. Tom Terrific’s movie career may not be over, after all. Some films appeal to audiences in a universal language. _Toy Story 3_, the year’s top-grossing film at home, was also No. 1 abroad, and became the third movie this year (after _Avatar_ and _Alice in Wonderland_) to exceed $1 billion at the worldwide wickets. No wonder there’ll be a _Toy Story 4_ … and maybe a _Shrek 5_, since a $700 million total gross has to indicate that moviegoers aren’t tired of the green ogre. (_Despicable Me_ has so far earned abroad only about 30% of its domestic take, but it has yet to open in many European countries.) In all, five films earned at least a half-billion dollars this summer. Here are the season’s global winners — each with domestic gross, foreign gross and worldwide total, respectively — in millions (m) of dollars: 1\. _Toy Story 3_, $408.1m (domestic) + $621.4m (foreign) = $1,029.5m (total) 2\. _Shrek Forever After_, $238.4m + $470.6m = $709m 3\. _Inception_, $277.1m + $417.6m = $694.7m 4\. _The Twilight Saga: Eclipse_, $298.7m + $356.7m = $655.4m 5\. _Iron Man 2_, $312.1m + $309.6m = $621.7m 6\. _Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time_, $90.6m + $239m = $329.6m 7\. _The Karate Kid_, $175.9m + $142.5 = $318.4m 8\. _Robin Hood_, $105.3m + $205.4m = $310.6m 9\. _Despicable Me_, $240.3m + $69.6m = $309.8m 10\. _Sex and the City 2_, $95.3m + $194.7m = $290.1m **Thanking the Little People** Female characters were near-invisible in most of the summer hits, and woman directors totally absent. But as Peter Knegt has pointed out on IndieWire, both sectors were well represented in the summer’s independent and foreign films. Lisa Chodolenko’s _The Kids Are All Right_, starring Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a lesbian couple whose children want to know about their sperm-donor daddy, is the season’s top-grossing indie hit. Debra Granek’s unsparing _Winter’s Bone_ has passed the $5 million mark; that’s like $100 million for a big Hollywood production. That regal daredevil Tilda Swinton, speaking Italian yet, lured discriminating viewers to the sexy-swoony _I Am Love_. Other notable actors doing pro-bono film work included Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray in _Get Low_, Ray Liotta in _City Island_, Michael Douglas in _Solitary Man_ and Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei and John C. Reilly in _Cyrus_. Four of the 10 top-grossers on the indie list are foreign-language films: _I Am Love_, this year’s Oscar-winning _The Secret of Their Smile_ and the pair of adaptations from Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. _The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo_, soon to be remade in English by David Fincher, earned a robust $10 million in North America, plus $93 million abroad. Its incendiary sequel has already taken in more than $6 million here. Those movies didn’t need a Hollywood star to lure an audience; they _made_ a star. Few knew Noomi Rapace before she played Lisbeth Salander. Now she’s thought to be a lock for an Academy Award nomination. Which is one more reason that the mass of moviegoers shouldn’t ignore indie and foreign films. When it’s time to fill out your ballot for the Oscar office pool, you should know about the “little” films in the big categories. Here are the season’s top-grossing indie and foreign films, including some that opened in the spring but kept playing through the summer: 1\. _The Kids Are All Right_, July, $19.8 million 2\. _The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo_, March, $10 million 3\. _Cyrus_, June, $7.4 million 4\. _City Island_, March, $6.7 , million 5\. _The Girl Who Played With Fire_, July, $6.3 million 6\. _The Secret in Their Eyes_, April, $6.3 million 7\. _Get Low_, July, $5.5 million 8\. _Winter’s Bone_, June, $5.5 million 9\. _I Am Love_, June, $4.5 million 10\. _Solitary Man_, May, $4.3 million [See the 100 best movies of all time.](https://www.time.com/time/2005/100movies/) [Watch TIME’s video on the best movie performances of 2009.](https://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,70462873001%5F1970273,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6911061/box-office-clooney-machete-and-the-summer-that-was/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6911061/box-office-clooney-machete-and-the-summer-that-was/"},"headline":"Box Office: Clooney, Machete and the Summer That Was","datePublished":"2010-09-06T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-22T16:19:16.947Z","description":"The good news for George Clooney: for the first time in his career, a movie in which he solo-starred opened No.1 at the weekend box...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6911061/box-office-clooney-machete-and-the-summer-that-was/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2c44fea36ff6e84f/698a4b7d457a521f50d69282/360_clooney_0906.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Richard Corliss","url":"https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2c44fea36ff6e84f/698a4b7d457a521f50d69282/360_clooney_0906.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"360_clooney_0906.jpg","caption":"Director Anton Corbijn, left, and George Clooney during the filming of The American","creditText":"Giles Keyte / Focus Features / AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6911061/box-office-clooney-machete-and-the-summer-that-was/","name":"Box Office: Clooney, Machete and the Summer That Was"}}]}] ```