Weekly box office report: Gordon Gekko back in style

Michael Douglas's one-time master of the universe, Gordon Gekko, showed he could still close a deal, as Oliver Stone's sequel to his 1987 Wall Street won the weekend with $19 million.

Pairing Douglas with young Shia LaBeouf, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps also won the battle of long movie titles as it bested the $16.3 million announced for the 3D animated feature Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole.

Legend, based on the first three of Kathryn Lasky's 15-book fantasy series, can at least claim it's the top-opening owl movie ever, unless you count Harry Potter's mail carrier Hedwig. The film version united two disparate forces: Zach Snyder, the director of the R-rated fables 300 and Watchmen, with the guys who animated Happy Feet, that G-rated penguin movie of four years back. Legend started slow on Friday, picked up a number of Saturday-matinee kids yesterday and hopes to pull in more today than it did on its opening day.

The Town, the Boston-set crime drama, starring and directed by Ben Affleck, is expected to earn $16 million; its modest 33 per cent slump from its opening frame suggests that the movie will have long legs.

The Town easily outran this weekend's other wide release, You Again. The cross-generational romantic comedy was designed to appeal to all female demographics by starring actresses in their twenties (Odette Yustman), thirties (Kristen Bell), forties (Kristen Chenoweth), fifties (Jamie Lee Curtis), sixties (Sigourney Weaver) and oh-so-adorable eighties (Betty White), but grossed only $8.3 million.

Here are the Sunday estimates of this weekend's top-grossing pictures in North American theaters, as reported by Box Office Mojo:

1. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, $19.7 million
2. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, $16.3 million
3. The Town, $16 million; $49.1 million
4. Easy A, $10.7 million; $32.8 million
5. You Again, $8.3 million
6. Devil, $6.5 million; $21.7 million
7. Resident Evil: Afterlife, $4.9 million; $52 million
8. Alpha and Omega, $4.7 million; $15.1 million
9. Takers, $1.65 million; $54.9 million
10. Inception, $1.2 million; $287.1 million

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