Box Office Update 4/27-4/29: Disturbia Clings to the Top Spot

Once again, Disturbia held onto the top spot, becoming the first film to repeat at the top for three weeks in a row this year. It is a trend that will be obliterated come next weekend when the first film of the 2007 summer season hits theaters. Back to this week, Dreamworks has to be happy with its performance thus far, I don't think they thought it would have had this hold ont he box office. Granted, this was an incredibly slow weekend, but still, it has taken more than two and a half times its production budget. By the time it hits DVD, all of its revenue is going to be gravy. It also has to make Shia Lebeouf feel good, what with his starring role in Transformers coming in a few months.

Three new films breached the top ten list this week, though none of them performed to studio expectations. The highest ranking film came in second place, The Invisible. It is a rather poor film with some nice visual touches, yet horrible story execution. Once the word gets out, this will probably sink rather quickly. It is followed by Next, the Nicolas Cage film that features an awful name and failed to place number one, as most (including me) had expected. The final nes film to crack the top ten is the latest WWE release, The Condemned. It is the action movie that forgot the action, and a message film that makes a case not to listen to its message, in essence, indicting its audience for watching it. It will disappear very quickly, desined for the budget bins.

Among the returning films, none of them fell that far from their take last week. Of course, that was a weak week, and this was a weak week, so there really wasn't that far to go. Blades of Glory continues its surge past the century mark as it begins its slow descent through ranks. Hot Fuzz had the best hold, although it did increase its theater count. I have to highly recommend this brilliant action comedy. The biggest slipper was Vacancy, the surprisingly excellent thriller, which fell 44% from last week.

In a bit of non-top ten news, 300 is still bringing people in, it has now crossed the $207 million mark and has a shot at $500 million worldwide. It passed T2 on the R rated top grosser list, and has Wedding Crashers in its sights. Pathfinder is plummeting down the charts into obscurity. Grindhouse is also rapidly slipping away, I can't wait for the DVD release!

Three films dropped from the list this week: In the Land of Women (12), Perfect Stranger (13), and Wild Hogs (14).

This Week	Last Week	Title	Wknd Gross	Overall	Week in release
1	1	Disturbia	$9,023,835	$52,109,598	3
2	N	The Invisible	$7,717,309	$7,717,309	1
3	N	Next	$7,133,049	$7,133,049	1
4	2	Fracture	$6,814,714	$21,075,259	2
5	3	Blades of Glory	$5,164,364	$108,050,741	5
6	5	Hot Fuzz	$4,876,867	$12,601,055	2
7	6	Meet the Robinsons	$4,840,972	$88,354,540	5
8	4	Vacancy	$4,112,502	$13,780,060	2
9	N	The Condemned	$3,807,595	$3,807,595	1
10	7	Are We Done Yet?	$3,450,922	$43,868,838	4

Box Office Predictions Recap
Hey! Guess what? I made awful picks again! All together now.... Yeah!! OK, maybe not yeah, but you cannot deny that I've been on a role as of late. Next week may change those fortunes as I can tell you right now what the number one movie will be, but then what would I write about next week? Anyway, I thought that Cage would be able to carry Next to the top, but it faltered out of the gate and Disturbia was able to retain the top spot and become the first three time winner this year. Anyone think it will make it to 4?

Anyway, here is how I picked the field:

Actual	Prediction	Title	Wknd Gross	Prediction
3	1	Next	$7,133,049	$15 million
2	2	The Invisible	$7,717,309	$11 million
1	3	Disturbia	$9,023,835	$10 million
6	4	Hot Fuzz	$4,876,867	$7 million
5	5	Blades of Glory	$5,164,364	$6 million
9	6	The Condemned	$3,807,595	$5.5 million
4	7	Fracture	$6,814,714	$5 million
7	8	Meet the Robinsons	$4,840,972	$3.5 million
10	9	Are We Done Yet?	$3,450,922	$2.5 million
12	10	Kickin' it Old Skool	$2,541,419	$2 million