Box Office Update: 8/12-14

Welcome once again to the Box Office Recap. This week offers a few notables, and surprises (at least to me).

Four Brothers exceeded my expectations at the box office, besides my exceeding my expectations of quality. It is a very good film, and it is always good to see a good film rise to the top of the box office. Following behind is another newcomer, The Skeleton Key. It was another surprisingly good film, not great, but definitely better than I was expecting it to be.

On another note, I was very happy to see Deuce do so poorly. I hope it dies a quick death so that it can make room for more deserving films. Speaking of more deserving, I have heard good things about The Great Raid, while it came in a disappointing 10th place. Of course, for a wide release, it had a very low screen count at around 800. I have read that they are planning for more screens next weekend.

As for the returning films, both Wedding Crashers and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory continue to have pull in decent numbers. Plus March of the Penguins becomes the documentary with the largest screen count, surpassing last years Fahrenheit 9/11,

Now for some non-top ten notes. Batman Begins has crossed the $200 million mark making it the second highest grossing Batman film. Sadly though, it is fourth of the five in terms of actual ticket sales. I am eagerly anticipating the sequel. Now, The Devil's Rejects may not have had a terribly good showing, but it did do well enough to more than double it's budget. I do hope that we get further films from the mind of Rob Zombie.

Three big budget films have also dropped off the list, each of varying quality. War of the Worlds is the second highest grosser of the year and is starting it's slide down. Fantastic Four, which was moderately entertaining, is dropping down. Lastly there is Stealth, the quickest faller of the bunch, and deserves as little as it gets.

One last note before I take my leave. The Island, which was a better film than the box office shows, is showing some legs overseas. It's take has already doubled what it has done here. I am also upset by Universal's producers blaming the two leads, Scarlett in particular, for the poor showing. Those comments are uncalled for in my opinion, I thought Both Johannsson and McGregor did fine jobs.

This Week	Last Week	Title	Wknd Gross	Overall	Week in release
1	N	Four Brothers	$21,176,925	$21,176,925	1
2	N	The Skeleton Key	$16,057,945	$16,057,945	1
3	1	The Dukes of Hazzard	$13,011,202	$57,459,025	2
4	2	Wedding Crashers	$11,834,614	$163,860,730	5
5	N	Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo	$9,626,287	$9,626,287	1
6	3	Charle and the Chocolate Factory	$7,412,391	$183,940,297	5
7	6	March of the Penguins	$6,848,205	$37,723,310	8
8	4	Sky High	$6,309,670	$43,499,197	3
9	5	Must Love Dogs	$4,575,046	$34,604,972	3
10	N	The Great Raid	$3,376,009	$3,376,009	1

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