"Possession" thrills at box office; Hal David dies.

  • 12 years ago
The supernatural thriller "The Possession" ranked No. 1 on U.S. and Canadian box office charts on Sunday (September 2), dethroning two-time champ "Expendables 2" and setting up for a likely win over the long U.S. holiday weekend.

"Possession" pulled in nearly 18 million U.S. dollars in North American ticket sales from Friday through Sunday and was expected to reach 21 million on Monday, according to studio estimates compiled by Reuters.

Another new film, "Lawless," nabbed 9.6 million at North American (U.S. and Canadian) theaters over the weekend. The movie stars Shia LaBeouf, Jason Clarke and Tom Hardy as bootlegging brothers in Prohibition-era Virginia.

The "Expendables 2" dropped to the No. 3 spot after spending two weeks leading the North American charts. The movie stars Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and other 1980s tough guys as a group of spies sent on an easy mission that turns dangerous when they seek revenge for a murder. It earned 9 million through Sunday and was expected to hit 11 million on Monday.

Hal David, a lyricist who along with Burt Bacharach wrote such hits as "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head" and "Walk on By," died in Los Angeles on Saturday (September 1) aged 91.

David passed away at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of complications from a stroke.

David began working with Bacharach in the late 1950s and their songs have been recorded by such artists as Dionne Warwick, Marty Robbins and Tom Jones.