Weekend Box Office

It's been a crazy weekend and movies are shuffling all over the place on the chart.

The 40 Year-Old Virgin takes top honors, but with only $20 million it's not much to celebrate. This weekend last year Princess Diaries 2 opened at $23 million. Maybe if Steve Carell had worn a tiara and done some mattress surfing instead of just tyring to get him some?

Other newly opened films including Red Eye and Valiant are spattered across the board in various places. Motorbikers made a poor showing, only giving their new fan flick Supercross: The Movie enough support to reach 15th place, barely earning $2 million dollars over a 5 day opening. Some films dropped a few notches as is tradition, but a couple are defying box office gravity.

We just can't seem to shake those cute penguins. The little guys rose again this week as they marched upward a notch following their first drop last week. This is 9th week in release for March of the Penguins and not only are they showing more staying power than Daisy Duke's bikini, they've outgrossed two heavy-weight summer failures, Stealth and The Island, both of which have all but disappeared from theaters. Wedding Crashers is another film that is clinging on for dear life, still holding the same place it had last week at number 4. While originally waltzing for first place against Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it's managing to stay afloat while Willy and company plummet to number 9.

Next weekend will see the release of the spelunking thriller The Cave and the wild, wacky Gilliam pic The Brothers Grimm. Will either one be able to unseat the middle aged guy trying to get laid? I'm betting yes. While many ciritcs have declared it the best comedy this year, I suspect much of America sees it as novelty comedy with a sex selling angle...not that there's anything wrong with that. After all, AvP made nearly $40 million its opening weekend last year. Bring on the mindless human vs. human-eating creature flick!

Also debuting next week is Ashlee Simpson, the actress. I wouldn't expect to see her film in the top ten, but then I wouldn't have expected her to plan a second appearance on SNL. This year, anything is possible.