Four other movies made it to the top ten, contributing to the 50% turnover of the nation's top films. The first one, following Enchanted is This Christmas, a film I did not think would crack the top ten. I guess I was wrong! It surprised most analysts with its strong showing, decisively taking the second spot on the list with its gross of more than $27 million.
Next on the new movie hit list is the video game adaptation Hitman. I have a strong feeling this will disappear rather quickly. It is not a very good movie. It has some stylish action but the story is so paper thin as to nearly be non-existent. The Xavier Gens directed action flick placed fourth place with a solid $21 million.
Slipping down to seventh you will find the musical drama August Rush. Here is a movie that deserves to do better. It is a wonderful fairy tale brought to life that may be dripping with sentimentality, but has so much infectious heart that you cannot help but feel for the main characters and the journey they have taken.
Right behind that, in eigth place, is the latest Stephen King adaptation, The Mist. I had thought this would have performed better than it did. Perhaps if it had opened in mid-October, during the build up to Halloween, it would have started out stronger. It is a creepy, apocalyptic, and dreadfully bleak, yet classy horror film adapted and directed by Frank Darabont. If you like horror, this is well worth your time.
Most of the returning films fared well over the holiday span, in particular No Country for Old Men which expanded to 860 locations and took a bump upwards of 250%. The only returning film to have taken a real dip is Beowulf, and it was only 15% off from last week. Next week will be a little more telling when we go back into non-holiday time.
Next week will only see one new film enter the fray. That film is Awake starring Hayden Christensen, Jessica Alba, Terrence Howard, and Lena Olin. However, following that, December is pretty well stacked with high profile releases that will increase the level of competition the further into the month you go.
Five movies dropped off the top ten this week: Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (11), Dan in Real Life (12), Lions for Lambs (13), Love in the Time of Cholera (14), and Saw IV (20).
At the time of this writing actual figures were not available, these are the 5-day estimates:
| This Week | Last Week | Title | Wknd Gross | Overall | Week in release |
| 1 | N | Enchanted | $50,048,000 | $50,048,000 | 1 |
| 2 | N | This Christmas | $27,100,000 | $27,100,000 | 3 |
| 3 | 1 | Beowulf | $23,315,000 | $56,361,000 | 3 |
| 4 | N | Hitman | $21,000,000 | $21,000,000 | 2 |
| 5 | 2 | Bee Movie | $15,988,000 | $112,069,000 | 1 |
| 6 | 4 | Fred Claus | $15,135,000 | $53,070,000 | 4 |
| 7 | N | August Rush | $13,330,000 | $13,330,000 | 2 |
| 8 | N | The Mist | $13,012,000 | $13,012,000 | 2 |
| 9 | 3 | American Gangster | $12,713,000 | $115,774,000 | 4 |
| 10 | 7 | No Country for Old Men | $11,012,000 | $16,640,000 | 1 |
Box Office Predictions Recap
Well, no one took me up on the home game idea, so I have no prediction amounts but it wouldn't have mattered. I was able to get a couple of the positions correct, but wildly overestimated The Mist and The Game Plan, which I thought had one weekend left in it. On the other side of the coin, I wildly underrestimated This Christmas, which I did not think would crack the top ten, and ended up finishing number 2. There's always next week.
Anyway, here is how I picked the field:
| Actual | Prediction | Title | Wknd Gross | Prediction |
| 1 | 1 | Enchanted | $50,048,000 | |
| 3 | 2 | Beowulf | $23,315,000 | |
| 8 | 3 | The Mist | $13,012,000 | |
| 4 | 4 | Hitman | $21,000,000 | |
| 5 | 5 | Bee Movie | $15,988,000 | |
| 9 | 6 | American Gangster | $12,713,000 | |
| 7 | 7 | August Rush | $13,330,000 | |
| 6 | 8 | Fred Claus | $15,135,000 | |
| 10 | 9 | No Country for Old Men | $11,012,000 | |
| 23 | 10 | The Game Plan | $351,000 |
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