The surprise B.O. hit of late 2006 and early 2007 has to be Ben Stiller’s “Night at the Museum.” We trashed it, critics trashed it, but moviegoers loved it, and that really is all that matters in the end.
The SF comedy featuring Ben Stiller and Robin Williams sharing the top spot was a runaway hit and was the dominate first place holder at the box office for four solid weeks in a roll, beating off such contenders as Will Smith’s “Pursuit of Happyness,” “Dreamgirls,” “The Good Shepard” and that other little surprise moneymaker, “Rocky Balboa.”
Like all good kings though, the reign had to end eventually and it did this past weekend, and ‘Museum’s’ end came from another surprise film “Stomp the Yard,” the engaging flick about
a “stepping” competition between black fraternities. So far, the filmgoing public are keeping filmmakers on their toes by spending their bucks on niche’ flicks.
Fox’s Ben Stiller SF laffer dropped to No. 2 with $17.1 million, pushing its cume to $185.8 million after four weeks in release. That number is staggering given its low ranking at the starting gate a month ago.
Luc Besson’s animated feature “Arthur and the Invisibles” did fairly weak in its first week of wide release bringing in around $4+ million. The Weinstein production has been rated as a bit of a disappointment by most film critics, even though one of the film’s heavy-hitting stars, Madonna, has gone out on the world-wide press junket to really push it.
“With a combination of animation and live-action, ‘Arthur’ is a concept that American family audiences aren’t really used to,” said Harvey Weinstein. “We are off to a slow start but, the exit polls are strong.”
The SF drama, “Children of Men,” continued to pick up an audience after only its second weekend in wide release, bringing in around $6.4 million to add to its slowly growing totals. Critics are evenly divided over this one, they either love it or hate it, with no room for a middle ground opinion.
“Casino Royale” is still growing very strong B.O. both domestically and internationally bringing in another $1.8 million over the weekend putting its domestic total to nearly $163 million and its grand total approaching the 1/2 billion dollar mark.
We will have the full domestic U.S. Top Ten B.O. totals for you in a couple of days.
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