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Box Office Preview: 'Machete' should dominate

LOS ANGELES – Twentieth Century Fox's "Machete" is set to slice up the competition as director Robert Rodriguez's star-studded extravaganza will likely dominate the weekend with a Friday through Monday total of around $16 million.

With co-star Lindsay Lohan all over the news lately and the film's theme of illegal immigration at the forefront of a national debate, this decidedly over-the-top and very nonpolitically correct action-comedy hybrid should give the summer a proper and bloody send off as we move into the more subdued fall movie season.

Second place will likely go to Focus Features' "The American," starring George Clooney. The film opened on Wednesday with around $1.7 million and this portends a Friday through Monday total in the mid-$15 million range and a first six-day gross of around $18 million. Clooney is one of the most popular actors working today and is a true movie star. Director Anton Corbijn is a Dutch photographer and director well known for shooting highly stylized music videos for U2, Depeche Mode, Coldplay and Nirvana.

With an expected four-day gross of around $12 million to $13 million, Warner Bros.' "Going the Distance" pairs the real life couple of Drew Barrymore and Justin Long in a romantic comedy that will be embraced by the date crowd while giving general audiences something light and fun to enjoy in a marketplace loaded with intense fare.

In fourth place with $11 million to $12 million will likely be Sony's "Takers." The PG-13 bank-heist thriller, which won last weekend's box office derby by a nose, is doing well mid-week and has enjoyed solid word-of-mouth since its debut last Friday. Paul Walker and Chris Brown lead a young ensemble cast that is successfully hitting all the key demographics.

This sets the stage for the sophomore weekend of Lionsgate's "The Last Exorcism" to possess a typical-for-the-genre second weekend drop in the 60 percent-plus range and a four-day gross of just under $10 million, thus rounding out the top five.

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Paul Dergarabedian is president of the Box Office Division of Hollywood.com. and has been providing box office information to The Associated Press for nearly two decades.

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