Box Office Update 12/29-1/1: Night at the Museum Rules the Day(s)

Well, 2006 is over, the final ticket has been sold for the calendar year. Sure, there are a some movies that have yet to go wide and will see their box office take rise, but that will have to take place in this new year. The final frame did see some good numbers for the carryover films. There were no new wide releases to choose from, although there was one film seeing its first weekend in wide release, having opened on Christmas day, but it did not cause much of a splash, failing to even crack the top 10.

This week's top two films were also the top two from last weekend. They have demonstrated some good staying power through the long holiday weekends. First is the Ben Stiller comedy, Night at the Museum. It is a fun romp for the family with plenty of effects and some big laughs, it may not be terribly memorable, but it does succeed at providing some entertainment. It was followed by the Will Smith drama, The Pursuit of Happyness. This film surprised me ny how good it was. I do not think it is the best of its kind, but Will Smith slips into the heartfelt drama and sells it, completely. I feel that having his son as his co-star gave him a lot of inspiration, their chemistry was fantastic.

Dreamgirls came in third, not bad for a film that has not yet completely rolled out to the nation. The rest of the field all saw significant increases in their take this week. They are led by Charlotte's Web, which seems to be finding some legs as the word of mouth spreads.

As I mentioned, the one film in wide release seeing its first weekend action failed to crack the top ten. That movie is the remake of the 1974 cult film, Black Christmas. I saw it this weekend, and it is not a terribly good movie, but I did find myself enjoying it a great deal. It has some nice, over the top blood, some interesting kills, and a bad guy with yellow skin. The biggest thing that it was missing, and this is an important one for a winning horror film, was a heroine to care about. The sorority house victims are all interchangeable and I didn't care about them. I am sure the lack of a good story, combined with it being a remake, helped keep people away.

One film dropped from the list this week: The Nativity Story (15).

These are estimates, final numbers are not yet available.

This Week	Last Week	Title	Wknd Gross	Overall	Week in release
1	1	Night at the Museum	$46,700,000	$125,755,000	2
2	2	The Pursuit of Happyness	$24,700,000	$103,746,000	3
3	25	Dreamgirls	$18,672,000	$41,637,000	5
4	5	Charlotte's Web	$15,050,000	$55,908,000	3
5	4	The Good Shepherd	$14,251,000	$38,317,000	2
6	3	Rocky Balboa	$13,660,000	$51,132,000	2
7	6	Eragon	$10,575,000	$58,789,000	3
8	7	We Are Marshall	$10,225,000	$27,263,000	2
9	9	Happy Feet	$9,700,000	$178,017,000	7
10	10	The Holiday	$8,500,000	$51,811,000	2

Box Office Predictions Recap
I did not make any predictions last week, so nothing to goof on here. They'll be back next week.