The summer season came to a close with Overheard 2 taking top honours once again over 6 new releases including the much-hyped Cowboys & Aliens. Bolstered by incredible WOM and strong ticket sales, the Chinese thriller slipped just 21% in its 2nd weekend. Throughout the week, it had great holds and posted the best admission numbers and drops of all holdovers. Thursday saw it slide 18% to just over 15,000 admissions. It jumped 40% on Friday but Its drop grew slightly bigger, shedding 20% from the previous Friday. Saturday saw it catapult 102% and deliver its strongest drop of the weekend, down 17%. It finished off the weekend with its biggest drop on Sunday, losing only 26%. Its performance was better than its predecessors 2nd weekend drop which fell 41%. While Overheard 2's drop in gross will be bigger, it will still be smaller than Overheard's 2nd weekend. With Thursday's actuals reported, it made just under $100,000 on its 2nd Thursday which is a 37% drop from its opening Thursday. I have this making around $672,000 for the weekend translating to about a 25% drop and sending it to 1.97m in just 11 days. There is a chance it could break 2m and pass the original's 1.99m total in its 2nd weekend.

Cowboys & Aliens was the strongest of the new releases but expectations were much higher for the sci-fi western than its counterparts. It opened decently to 12,143 admissions on its opening day but followed it up with a very poor Friday, rising just 3% to post the worst Friday increase of the top 5. Its Saturday didn't do much better even though it climbed over 60%. It posted the second worst drop of the top 5 and the poor Friday meant the drop looks even worse in comparison. There are more troubling signs for this movie as if you combine Thursday and Friday's admissions and compare it with Saturday's, Cowboys & Aliens actually tumbles 18%, narrowly beating out Final Destination 5 for the second worst drop of the top 5. By comparsion, Overheard 2 storms up 18% whereas Horrible Bosses inches up 3% and Apes slips just 4%. It couldn't stop the bleeding on Sunday as it fell 9% to finish with 63,482 admissions for the weekend. IMAX didn't help out as much as expected as this was sharing screens with Cars 2, Harry Potter and Apes (non-IMAX) and performed with light sales. While the aliens might have drummed up some business, it played too much on the western theme which typically does poorly at the box office here. There's also no A-list starpower like Will Smith or Tom Cruise to make people watch it. Overall, a disappointing weekend for Cowboys & Aliens and mild WOM won't be able to save this one.

Apes just managed to beat out Horrible Bosses for the weekend with a better Sunday but drops increased with each passing day. It tumbled over 50% every day this weekend and chances of it passing X-Men: First Class's total have diminished. Still, It has done well for itself and has already passed Captain America and made 2.5m and is on track to clear 3m. The holds this week weren't good but it will get another shot next weekend as competition is expected to be fairly light. It may even be shown over Cowboys & Aliens and Horrible Bosses which both didn't amount to much. A $280,000 weekend would translate to a 56% drop for the weekend and give it an astounding 2.78m total.

Horrible Bosses ended the final week of summer as one of the few representatives of the comedy genre in the past 4 months. While foreign comedies don't do exceptionally well in Hong Kong, they have gotten more high profile with The Hangover 2 banking over $500,000 opening weekend. Horrible Bosses didn't start off well on Thursday, opening to only 5,848 admissions. It rebounded on Friday with a whopping 60% increase and bounced up another 60% on Saturday (68%) before coming down to earth with a 17% drop on Sunday. It played very well with couples as noticed by the Friday and Saturday increases and huge Sunday drop and WOM has been good. $270,000 for the weekend should be about right and WOM will keep this one in theaters a little while longer.

Final Destination 5 didn't do too badly in its 2nd weekend as it had drops around the 50% mark Thu-Sat. While it did not place on Sunday, it's been having relatively good drops all weekend so a Sunday collapse looks unlikely. With Thursday's actuals reporting a 60% drop in gross, weekend should end up around $210,000. That is a 54% drop, good enough for a $906,000 total.

The Smurfs and Cars 2 were pretty close this weekend but it looks like The Smurfs came out on top with a top 5 admissions finish on Sunday. After this weekend, Smurfs should be up to 2.1m while Cars 2 will have to settle for 2.25m.

Even with the dub, Wasao didn't make much this weekend. It looks like it will open with $90,000 for a mediocre $5,666 PSA.

Summer Love Love bombed as there was too much competition and fatigue from the romance-plagued summer. It is only looking at a $75,000 weekend and a $2,500 PSA.

The Whistleblower didn't muster much as ticket sales were really weak. I wouldn't be surprised if this finished below Snow Flower And The Secret Fan but it looks like it escaped with an $18,000 weekend.

Snow Flower And The Secret Fan played in limited release and looks to start off with $15,000 for the weekend.