THIS WEEKEND With Americans glued to their television sets over Super Bowl weekend, the box office was relatively calm with the new horror film Darkness Falls topping the charts with an estimated $12.5M. The Sony release played wide in 2,837 locations and averaged a decent $4,406 per theater. With no other fright flicks in the marketplace, the PG-13 film offered counterprogramming and delivered a top spot debut. Audiences polled by CinemaScore.com gave Darkness Falls a not-so-encouraging B- grade.
Last weekend's winner, Kangaroo Jack, slipped 28% to second place with an estimated $11.9M pushing its ten-day total to $35.5M. The $60M Warner Bros. release should find its way to about $65-70M.
Oscar front-runner Chicago made use of its three big Golden Globes and climbed three spots to third place with $8.5M. Now in the highest chart position of its five-week run, the Hollywood musical has stashed away $40.6M in its bank and averaged a dazzling $13,721 from 616 venues.
Former number-one Just Married followed in fourth with an estimated $7.5M, down 37%, for a $44.3M cume. Sony's National Security suffered the biggest decline dropping 49% to an estimated $7.4M raising its total to $26.1M.
Chart inseparables The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Catch Me If You Can took in weekend takes of $6.9M and $6.6M respectively. The New Line megablockbuster slipped 33% and lifted its cume to $309.1M putting it at number 12 on the list of all-time domestic blockbusters after Star Wars Episode II ($310.4M). Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks hit fell 38% and brought its sum to $145.1M.
Miramax expanded its George Clooney-directed film Confessions of a Dangerous Mind from 5 to 1,769 theaters and grossed an estimated $6M for a weak eighth-place bow. Averaging only $3,393 per venue, the R-rated story about the secret life of Chuck Barris has grossed $6.5M to date and with its CinemaScore.com grade of C, does not look to last too long.
Jack Nicholson's About Schmidt slipped a scant 3% to an estimated $5.5M for a $37.9M total. The Hours rounded out the top ten with an estimated $4M from 502 locations for a solid $7,968 average. Cume to date is $13.9M.
Buena Vista reported a strong performance from its Saturday sneak previews of the action-comedy Shanghai Knights. The film attracted an audience that was evenly divided among all demographic groups and 90% of the shows were sold out. A very high 95% described the Jackie Chan-Owen Wilson starrer as "excellent" or "very good." The studio will open the sequel to Shanghai Noon on February 7 in over 2,500 theaters.
The top ten films grossed an estimated $76.8M which was down 26% from last year when Black Hawk Down remained at number one with $17M; but up 15% from 2001 when The Wedding Planner debuted on top with $13.5M.
Compared to projections, Darkness Falls opened very close to my $13M forecast while Confessions of a Dangerous Minds debuted a bit below my $8M prediction.
Be sure to check back on Monday night for final figures and again on Thursday for a complete summary, including projections, for next weekend when The Recruit, Final Destination 2, Biker Boyz, and The Guru all open.