Liberty Media’s Overture Films lands 2 movies in weekend top 10

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Overture Films — the two-year-old Hollywood studio owned by John Malone's Liberty Media Corp. — has had two movies in the weekend box office top 10 for three weeks running.

The films are “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” starring George Clooney, and “Law Abiding Citizen,” with Jamie Foxx.

“Goats” was No. 7 at the box office over the just-concluded weekend, No. 4 the weekend of Nov. 13-15 and No. 3 its opening weekend, Nov. 6-8, according to the Reuters news service.

And “Citizen” was No. 10 last weekend, No. 9 the weekend before and No. 8 the weekend before that, according to Reuters.

For box-office purposes, Hollywood considers a weekend to be the Friday-through-Sunday period except over a holiday weekend.

Previously, Overture had two movies in the top 10 the weekend of Oct. 16-18, when “Citizen” was No. 2 and Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” was No. 9.

“Citizen,” which has been in release for six weeks, is now Overture’s best-selling movie ever, with a total box-office gross of $70 million, according to Box Office Mojo, a website that tracks box-office revenues. Overture’s 2008 release “Righteous Kill,” with Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, is No 2 with $40.1 million, and “Goats” is No. 3 with $27.7 million.

Douglas County-based Liberty Media launched Overture Films with $325 million two years ago to create a nimble, independent film distributor, promising moviemakers access to both theatrical and home video release. (DBJ report.)

Overture gives Liberty Media exclusive movies for its Starz and Encore cable movie subsidiaries, and its DVD distribution business, Anchor Bay Entertainment.

Chris McGurk, a Hollywood studio veteran and former vice chairman at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, runs Overture as its CEO and oversees Anchor Bay. Danny Rosett, former president of MGM’s United Artists, is Overture’s COO.

The weekend performance of both Overture films was overwhelmed by “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” the second movie based on a book series about teen vampires. “New Moon” took in $142.8 million in the United States, the third-highest opening-weekend gross ever, unadjusted for inflation.

“New Moon,” which was shown at more than 4,000 theaters, cost less than $50 million to produce.

In front of “New Moon” on the first-weekend list of champions are 2008’s Batman movie “The Dark Knight” and 2007’s “Spider-Man 3,” earning $158.4 million and $151.1 million in their opening weekends, respectively.

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