Box Office Update 1/19-1/21: Stomp the Yard Holds Off Night at the Museum

Stomp the Yard clawed its way back to the top spot, narrowly fending of a play for a return to the top by the Ben Stiller monster, Night at the Museum. None of the other films even came close to taking the top two spots away from these two. Of couse, none of them really put up much of a fight. Overall, the week was distinctly to the lower end of the scale. It was one of the lowest grossing weeks in some time, and the lowest so far of the young year.

This week did see the expansion of The Queen back into wide release, in the wake of Helen Mirren's Golden Globe win, and in anticipation of her Oscar nomination. The movie paid off as the movie made its way back into the top ten. It is definitely a movie that is worth seeing. While I may not have rated it as highly as other films currently in theaters, but Helen Mirren's performance is one to be seen.

There was only one new film to enter wide release, and it vastly underperformed against its expectations. The Hitcher opened to lackluster numbers, and what is sure to be poor word of mouth, placing fourth. For what its worth, I enjoyed the film. The leads may be rather bland, but Sophia Bush has certain assets that are worth seeing, and Sean Bean is always entertaining.

One other film climbed into the top ten this week. Guillermo del Toro's masterpiece, Pan's Labyrinth, rose to number seven this week. It did whis while playing at merely 609 theaters. Compare that to The Hitcher's 2,831 locations. This is a film that is a must see on the big screen. This and Alfono Cuaron's Children of Men are the two absolute must see films that are currently playing. So, do yourself a favor and see these two fantastic additions to the world of film. You won't be disappointed.

Three films dropped from the list this week: Charlotte's Web (12), Alpha Dog (11), and Primeval (15).

This Week	Last Week	Title	Wknd Gross	Overall	Week in release
1	1	Stomp the Yard	$12,287,352	$40,550,946	2
2	2	Night at the Museum	$12,012,724	$204,852,656	5
3	4	Dreamgirls	$8,008,749	$77,415,704	6
4	N	The Hitcher	$7,818,239	$7,818,239	1
5	3	The Pursuit of Happyness	$6,310,133	$146,121,200	6
6	5	Freedom Writers	$5,207,062	$26,524,683	3
7	16	Pan's Labyrinth	$4,502,243	$9,932,414	4
8	7	Children of Men	$3,710,945	$27,491,508	4
9	24	The Queen	$3,400,061	$35,557,521	17
10	9	Arthur and the Invisibles	$3,080,698	$9,272,106	4

Box Office Predictions Recap
This was a week of extremes. I had a number of films that landed way off from my predictions, a few land pretty close, and the same thing goes for my dollar predictions. I completely overestimated the opening of The Hitcher, although I suspect that many had done that. I nailed the middle two and the anchor films positions, while I was off by one for another 4. Just don't look at The Hitcher or Primeval. My dollar predictions were pretty close for about half the titles, and again, don't look at The Hitcher. Anyway, here is how I fared:

Actual	Prediction	Title	Wknd Gross	Prediction
4	1	The Hitcher	$7,818,239	$21 million
1	2	Stomp the Yard	$12,287,352	$17 million
2	3	Night at the Museum	$12,012,724	$13 million
3	4	Dreamgirls	$8,008,749	$7.5 million
5	5	Pursuit of Happyness	$6,310,133	$6 million
6	6	Freedom Writers	$5,207,062	$5 million
8	7	Children of Men	$3,710,945	$4.5 million
11	8	Alpha Dog	$2,990,995	$4 million
15	9	Primeval	$1,878,287	$3.5 million
10	10	Arthur and the Invisibles	$3,080,698	$2 million