Weekend Box Office

Well, no real surprises this week, except maybe the fact that Crash managed to cling to the top ten for one more weekend, but I won't get ahead of myself.

Whether you went to see it because you loved the trailers or just wanted to see what all the Brad/Angelina fuss was about, you helped make Mr. and Mrs. Smith the second strongest first weekend opener so far this year, coming in at just under half what Star Wars made it's first weekend out. Meanwhile, Madagascar, Star Wars and The Longest Yard continue their box office waltz for top honors. They've hung in there for a couple weeks now, trampling everything else entering the dance. Expect them to linger in the top five a little longer with only Batman Begins offering any real competition next week.

Howl's Moving Castle, the lastest from master filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki (I don't know who dubbed him that, but it fits and darn if it isn't a lot of fun to say), made a smashing debut at the 36 theaters where it opened, making more per theater this week than everything except Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Anime fans rejoice: with that kind of response it's certain to get a much wider release, however we may never see it on the top ten. We'll have to wait and see.

Also interesting to note was the total disaster that was the stateside release of horror flick High Tension. Despite a massive marketing campaign it belly flopped in a major way. Thrashing in at number 12, it barely managed to make 5 times the amount of Howl's Moving Castle despite the fact that it was showing at more than 35 times the number of venues. Expect it to finish dying fast and quiet, an ironic box office ending for a horror movie.

Kudos to those couple million of you who got out there to see Crash this weekend, keeping it afloat the top ten one last week. I really didn't expect to see it there, and given how close its numbers are to number 11, Lords of Dogtown, it may fall off after final numbers are in. I'm certain my plea for folks to see Crash played no role whatsoever, but I'll make it again anyway: go see this movie! It would be amazing to see it beat out Monster-in-Law and Traveling Pants next week. Here's to wishful thinking.