Friday Report: 'Town' Takes Crown
On Friday, The Town was the talk of the box office, Easy A received some attention, Devil wasn't elevated, and Alpha and Omega was a dog. Overall business was a bit higher than the same Friday last year when Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs debuted.

The Town hauled in an estimated $8.4 million on approximately 3,500 screens at 2,861 locations, earning the comparison its marketing made to The Departed. The latter blazed onto the scene with $8.7 million on around 4,200 screens at 3,017 locations nearly four years ago (though its attendance was about 25 percent greater than The Town's). Like Departed, The Town busted out of its genre norm, grossing more in one day than Gone Baby Gone and Pride & Glory did in their entire first weekends and more than doubling the opening day of We Own the Night. If The Town follows a similar pattern to those movies, its opening weekend would come in close to $25 million.

In second, Easy A aced its first day with an estimated $6.8 million on close to 3,500 screens at 2,856 locations. That was about as much as Jennifer's Body made Friday-through-Sunday on the same weekend last year, and it blew away the openings of many other comparable titles, including Youth in Revolt, Whip It and Sydney White. It also edged out The House Bunny, John Tucker Must Die and 10 Things I Hate About You. In other words, Easy A was above average but not in the league of Mean Girls and Superbad among others.

True to its pedestrian title, Devil delivered an average estimated $4.9 million on nearly 3,300 screens at 2,809 locations. Its start was a bit less than Quarantine, One Missed Call and The Eye, but a bit more than Mirrors, Stay Alive and Dark Water among other horror movies.

Alpha and Omega picked up a meager estimated $2.3 million on around 3,000 screens at 2,625 locations. More than 1,600 locations presented the animated feature in the 3D illusion, and they accounted for nearly 70 percent of the gross.

Resident Evil: Afterlife had a Friday-to-Friday fall in line with its predecessors. The horror action sequel tumbled 72 percent to an estimated $3 million, around 75 percent of which from 3D presentations. The Friday-to-Friday drops of the previous movies were, in chronological order, 69 percent, 71 percent and 75 percent. Despite having the highest gross through the eight-day point ($36.9 million), Afterlife continued to be the least-attended entry in the series.

Inception saw the smallest decline among nationwide holdovers, easing 28 percent to an estimated $595,000. Its total stands at $283.8 million in 64 days.

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Daily Grosses for Friday, Sept. 17