Nikki Finke writes, “…the surprise No. 1 movie Friday was Screen Gems/Sony’s low-cost horror flick Quarantine which scared up $5 million from 2,461 theaters for what’s a possible $13.5M weekend — good enough for 2nd place by Sunday.” Shocking news on an early Saturday morning. She goes on to say, “Disney’s holdover Beverly Hills Chihuahua should beat all four opening movies with an estimated $18M thanks to Friday’s $4.5 million haul and rival Hollywood studios sensed weak wannasee around Warner Bros’ debut of the war on terror spy thriller Body of Lies — but no one expected it to under perform this badly.

Its weekend estimate is only $13 million, which is disastrous for the huge budget/high-profile drama.” ouch! “City Of Ember starring Bill Murray did so badly it’ll be lucky to snatch 10th place.” HA!  But sadly, one of WAMG’s favorite films, ‘The Express,’ didn’t fare so well… it only placed 6th.

‘Quarantine’ #1? No surprise here…Halloween season and all. People want to see a scary movie and this remake surprisingly was….very! After taking a look around at the audience on Friday night, every demographic was represented at ‘Quarantine.’ Watch out for the “Thin Infected Man”! UGO has even posted the bloody red carpet interviews from Knotts “Scary” Farm. As far as ‘Lies’ bombing, have to give it up to Jeremy…he was dead on with his review and subsequent rating….script was lacking. Even with its Oscar-pedigree, people are turning away in droves from the subject matter. Big smirk from me that the lackluster, dismal ‘City of Ember’ may not even make it on this weekend’s top 10 list. Didn’t care for it one bit. Lastly, I had a nagging feeling that we’d see the family-friendly BHC on top of the dog-pile again.