Box Office Update 8/18-8/20: Snakes on a Plane Slithers to the Top, Just Barely

Not quite as commanding as the studio had anticipated, but Snakes on a Plane did take the top spot this week. This is the second film that shows the overestimation of the internet audience, the other being last year's Serenity. All the hype and all the buzz amounted to a funny title and not much else at the box office on what turned out to be a weak weekend. Snakes opened well with $7.5 million on Friday, but quickly tailed off over Saturday and Sunday. It's a shame too, the film is a blast of a B film. I never really expected it to go very far, as opening weekend was assuredly going to be its best shot at a profit. All I will say is, if you want to have 90 minutes of stupid fun, this is your movie.

Also moving onto the top ten this week is Accepted, a surprisingly entertaining teen comedy that pits the establishment against some unconventional teaching techniques. Justin Long takes the lead and proves how adept he is at playing the everyman loser role. Debuting down at number 9 is Material Girls, starring the Duff sisters. It opened with less than stellar results, and will likely sink fast.

Rounding out the new entries is Little Miss Sunshine, jumping 5 places from 12 to 4 in its fourth week of release. This is a delightful film about a family beset with all manner of issues. Take a motivational speaker, a housewife, a sex starved and drug addicted grandfather, a suicidal brother, a silent son, and a daugher that wants to be a beauty queen, and put them in a VW bus, mix well, and comedy will ensue. Very good film, and not your typical summer flick. It stars Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, and Alan Arkin.

Among the returning films Will Ferrell leads the pack as Ricky Bobby placed second with a drop of a mere 37.8%. Performing even better, but a little further down the list Barnyard fared surprisingly well dropping only 21.9% and the Disney juggernaut of Dead Man's Chest slipped just 28%. Pirates take has crossed the $400 million barrier, making it only the 7th film to reach that plateau, and only the 5th to do it during its initial release, plus it is th second fastest to that point.

Four films dropped from the list this week: The Descent (11), Miami Vice (12), Zoom (13), and Monster House (14).

This Week	Last Week	Title	Wknd Gross	Overall	Week in release
1	N	Snakes on a Plane	$13,806,311	$13,806,311	1
2	1	Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby	$13,755,387	$114,341,263	3
3	3	World Trade Center	$10,901,350	$45,105,868	2
4	2	Step Up	$10,157,605	$39,738,435	2
5	N	Accepted	$10,023,835	$10,023,835	1
6	4	Barnyard	$7,581,622	$46,088,273	3
7	12	Little Miss Sunshine	$5,610,845	$12,692,059	4
8	6	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest	$5,212,351	$401,253,092	7
9	N	Material Girls	$4,603,121	$4,603,121	1
10	5	Pulse	$3,519,889	$14,695,988	2

Box Office Predictions Recap
Well, I guess three out of ten isn't that bad. Not too good either, especially if you look a some of my dollar predictions. Oh well, there's always next week.

Actual	Prediction	Title	Wknd Gross	Prediction
1	1	Snakes on a Plane	$22,126,226	$25 million
2	2	Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby	$8,203,822	$17 million
5	3	Accepted	$20,659,573	$15 million
4	4	Step Up	$7,237,927	$13.5 million
9	5	Material Girls	$18,730,762	$10 million
8	6	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest	$4,510,408	$8 million
10	7	Pulse	$9,701,882	$6.5 million
3	8	World Trade Center	$4,706,430	$5.5 million
6	9	Barnyard	$4,616,462	$3.5 million
13	10	Zoom	$3,285,771	$2.5 million

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