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It Just Got Loud

By Tom White


It Might Get Loud, Davis Guggenheim's docu-primer on how to be a guitar hero, as conveyed by three certified masters (U2's The Edge, The White Stripes' Jack White and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page), passed the seven-figure mark in box office gross, becoming the seventh doc to do so in 2009. The current U2 blockbuster tour may well have inspired fans to flock to the cinema to watch The Edge trade licks and riffs with his fellow axmen.

The final quarter of 2009 could play itself out as the Battle of the Michaels, with Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story having opened strongly in four theaters this past weekend (it currently has the highest per-screen average of any film this year, about $60,000), the Michael Jackson valediction, This Is It, destined to scorch the box office in its limited run, and the Next Michael Jordan, Lebron James, stoking the press junket circuit with the upcoming More Than A Game, about his national champion high school basketball team.

Here is the latest list of the top-ten grossing docs of 2009:

1) Earth                                               $32,011,576

2) Food, Inc.                                         $ 4,306,466

3) The September Issue                        $ 2,502,000

4) Waltz with Bashir                              $ 2,283,849

5) Valentino: The Last Emperor:             $ 1,755,134

6) Every Little Step                                $ 1,719,364

7) It Might Get Loud                              $ 1,133,000

8) Tyson                                              $    887,918

9) Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg                    $    790,402

10) The Cove                                       $    770,419

Source: www.boxofficemojo.com