Get Smart took the top spot in easy fashion, providing Steve Carell with the biggest opening of hjs career. The best part about its taking of the top spot is that it is actually a good movie. It is not great by any stretch, but it is funny, has some nice action, and does not come off as your typical bumbling spoof film, it has a certain level of intelligence behind it. This is definitely worth spending some time with.
There was one other new release to enter nationwide cineplexes, Mike Myers' comedy The Love Guru. It pulled in below expectations and has already been labeled a failure. You know what? I am happy for it. As much as I like Myers and as good as some of his past movies have been, this one is just not funny. I sat there in the theater waiting, hoping for it to get funny, but it never did. Now, this is just anecdotal evidence, but I seemed to be the minority as a large portion of the quite full theater seemed to be having a blast. This fact led me to be surprised at how poorly it fared overall in terms of box office. I suspect that this will sink pretty quickly over the next couple of weeks.
As for the returning films, The Incredible Hulk suffered a steep 60% drop, but managed to hang on to the second place finish. Hopefully this will level off as this is a much better film than that drop would indicate. The same can be said for The Happening, which fell over 65%. This film is better than that, although I can see, and completely understand, the polarizing effect it and its writer/director can be.
On the other hand, a few films managed to have decent holds this week. Chief among these are Iron Man, Kung Fu Panda, and Sex and the City. Each one of these three had drops of 35% or less, which is quite good. All three have also proven to be big hits, however, all but Kung Fu Panda will likely be forced out of the top ten soon.
Next week will see new competition from a family film in Pixar's Wall*E and the over the top actioner Wanted. I must admit to looking forward to both, particularly the Pixar film.
Two movies dropped off the top ten this week: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (11) and What Happens in Vegas (12).
| This Week | Last Week | Title | Wknd Gross | Overall | Week in release |
| 1 | N | Get Smart | $38,683,480 | $38,683,480 | 1 |
| 2 | 1 | The Incredible Hulk | $22,136,060 | $97,055,430 | 2 |
| 3 | 2 | Kung Fu Panda | $21,934,716 | $155,830,875 | 3 |
| 4 | N | The Love Guru | $13,907,130 | $13,907,130 | 1 |
| 5 | 3 | The Happening | $10,482,146 | $50,749,495 | 2 |
| 6 | 5 | Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull | $8,540,313 | $290,961,044 | 5 |
| 7 | 4 | You Don't Mess with the Zohan | $7,453,215 | $84,308,418 | 3 |
| 8 | 6 | Sex and the City | $6,532,394 | $132,452,769 | 4 |
| 9 | 7 | Iron Man | $4,030,272 | $304,816,141 | 8 |
| 10 | 8 | The Strangers | $2,122,410 | $49,759,735 | 4 |
Box Office Predictions Recap
Not a terribly good week for me. Yes, I just about nailed the top film on the head and I got a couple of others in general ballpark, but overall I did a pretty poor job in guessing where the money was going to go. Not that I mind, guessing is where the fun is and sometimes I am happy to see some numbers go in different directions. A good example of this is The Love Guru, which came in below my expectations and well deserving at that (it's an awful movie). Another example, although the numbers were close, I am happy for every dollar that Iron Man takes in as it is a fantastic film. Next week should be interesting.
Here is how the field matched up:
| Actual | Prediction | Title | Wknd Gross | Prediction |
| 1 | 1 | Get Smart | $38,683,480 | $38 million |
| 2 | 2 | The Incredible Hulk | $22,136,060 | $28 million |
| 4 | 3 | The Love Guru | $13,907,130 | $21 million |
| 3 | 4 | Kung Fu Panda | $21,934,716 | $18 million |
| 5 | 5 | The Happening | $10,482,146 | $16 million |
| 7 | 6 | You Don't Mess with the Zohan | $7,453,215 | $9 million |
| 6 | 7 | Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull | $8,540,313 | $8.5 million |
| 8 | 8 | Sex and the City | $6,532,394 | $4.5 million |
| 9 | 9 | Iron Man | $4,030,272 | $3.5 million |
| 10 | 10 | The Strangers | $2,122,410 | $1.5 million |
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