In addition to Horton's success, two other new releases made their presence felt in the top ten this week. First up is Never Back Down, finishing third with $8.6 million. Not a bad haul for a film with a narrow band of appeal (primarily adolescent males). The film could have been fun, even though it had no chance of being good, if only the fights were good (they aren't). It is the equivalent of Step Up 2 from earlier this year, only with fighting instead of dancing. Both films used the same formula, but the earlier film succeeded by infusing infectious energy into the dances, while Never Back Down settled for lame fights that wanted to be like real MMA fights, but just couldn't make the grade.
Slipping down to seventh place you will find Neil Marshall's latest creation, Doomsday. I truly felt the film was going to do better than the nearly $5 million that it got. It is a big overblown action film that should have played well to the masses. I saw it and loved it, but in retrospect I recognize that its cult-like appeal masquerading as the mainstream combined with its R rating was not going to allow it to garner mass appeal. Well, that and the fact that it plays like a greatest hits real from a number of other, better films.
As for the returning films, 10,000 BC fell the expected 50+%, while the rest of the top ten films exhibited decent staying power from last week. In particular, The Bank Job slipped less than 15%, pretty impressive for what is a film with smaller aspirations than, say, Semi-Pro, which is just now reaching, in its third weekend, what it was predicted to make in its first.
Next week is Easter and will likely be a weak weekend at the box office. Still, there will be a few films arriving that will be competing for your dollar. Those films will be the latest Judd Apatow production, Drillbit Taylor starring Owen Wilson, the latest horror remake in Shutter, and Tyler Perry's latest film, Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns.
Three movies dropped off the top ten this week: Jumper (11), Fool's Gold (13), and Step up 2: The Streets (14).
| This Week | Last Week | Title | Wknd Gross | Overall | Week in release |
| 1 | N | Horton Hears a Who | $45,012,998 | $45,012,998 | 1 |
| 2 | 1 | 10,000 B.C. | $16,773,312 | $61,577,423 | 2 |
| 3 | N | Never Back Down | $8,603,195 | $8,603,195 | 1 |
| 4 | 2 | College Road Trip | $7,810,400 | $24,203,543 | 2 |
| 5 | 3 | Vantage Point | $5,462,747 | $59,263,128 | 4 |
| 6 | 4 | The Bank Job | $5,054,961 | $13,257,949 | 2 |
| 7 | N | Doomsday | $4,926,565 | $4,926,565 | 1 |
| 8 | 5 | Semi-Pro | $3,043,162 | $29,809,714 | 3 |
| 9 | 7 | The Other Boleyn Girl | $2,882,846 | $19,153,729 | 3 |
| 10 | 6 | The Spiderwick Chronicles | $2,335,238 | $65,376,031 | 5 |
Box Office Predictions Recap
Well, my placing was all over the place, but my gross predictions were, more or less, in the right ballpark. My biggest dollar goofs were underestimating Horton by about $5 million and overestimating Doomsday by $3 million. The rest of my guesstimations all fell within $1.5 million, and I feel pretty good about that, at least for the moment. As for my placing, I would have figured that Doomsday was going to place a little better than it did, I guess its packaging as a cult film in training did not help its box office potential.
Here is how the field matched up:
| Actual | Prediction | Title | Wknd Gross | Prediction |
| 1 | 1 | Horton Hears a Who | $45,012,998 | $40 million |
| 2 | 2 | 10,000 B.C. | $16,773,312 | $18 million |
| 4 | 3 | College Road Trip | $7,810,400 | $8 million |
| 7 | 4 | Doomsday | $4,926,565 | $7.5 million |
| 3 | 5 | Never Back Down | $8,603,195 | $7 million |
| 5 | 6 | Vantage Point | $5,462,747 | $5 million |
| 6 | 7 | The Bank Job | $5,054,961 | $4 million |
| 10 | 8 | The Spiderwick Chronicles | $2,335,238 | $3.5 million |
| 8 | 9 | Semi-Pro | $3,043,162 | $3 million |
| 9 | 10 | The Other Boleyn Girl | $2,882,846 | $2.5 million |
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