'Limitless' Tops Box Office With $19 Million

3/21/2011 3:08 PM ET

(RTTNews) - Though both "The Lincoln Lawyer" and "Paul" saw modest opening totals, action-thriller "Limitless" found its audience and pulled in nearly $7,000 per venue, enough to finish atop the box office charts with a studio estimated $19 million. "Rango" finished in second once again with $15 million over the weekend and "Battle: Los Angeles" rounded out the top three with $14.60 million.

With a production budget of only $27 million and a relatively small marketing push, it was unclear how much box office potential that "Limitless" would have heading into the weekend, but it proved to have more than enough to land as the number one overall draw. With stars Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro heading the cast, "Limitless" had no problem overcoming competition from "Battle: Los Angeles" and posted a very strong opening weekend for distributor Relativity.
Even if De Niro has not fared very well at the box office in recent years, "Limitless" marks the second straight commercial success for the legendary, Oscar-winning actor. His last release, "Little Fockers," was one of the worst reviewed movies of 2010 but still did well at the box office at the end of 2010 and "Limitless" is off to a very good start for a production with such a small budget. "Limitless" also looks to be only Cooper's first release to top the charts in 2011, as "The Hangover 2" is poised for a big box office run coming up in the early portion of summer.
But while "Limitless" had no problem finding its audience, "The Lincoln Lawyer" had a little more difficulty getting going in its first weekend. Even with very strong critical reviews, "The Lincoln Lawyer" managed a weekend intake of just $13.40 million on a per theater average of less than $5,000. "The Lincoln Lawyer" also had a $40 million production budget and will likely struggle to find an audience over the next couple of weekends as well.