Kung Fu Panda opened strong with a take of more than $60 million. The animated feature from Dreamworks Animation is an excellent family film that succeeds where other Dreamworks animated features have failed. It moves away from pop-culture references and cheap gags and tells a classic coming of age story with style, class, and plenty of humor. The movie also looks great on the giant IMAX screen, I have to recommend that those of you near one avail yourself of it. I suspect that this film will have a strong run as we move further into the summer.
Coming in a distant, but still strong, second is the latest Adam Sandler comedy, You Don't Mess with the Zohan. It is a film that is pretty dang funny, but Sandler has something of a polarizing effect on the audience, making its legs a little shakier than Kung Fu Panda's. Still, if you are a fan of Sandler's earlier work (Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison), you will probably enjoy this movie that has Sandler take his stupid comedy to the world stage.
Among the returning films, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Iron Man both continued to have strong showings as they both continue on their paths towards $300 million. It is a mark one has to wonder how many more films this summer will cross? I am pretty sure that Pixar's Wall*E will have a good shot at it. Any others? I would like to say Dark Knight, but I have a feeling that will top out around $250 million.
Next week will see The Incredible Hulk and The Happening take aim at the charts. The former is a more action oriented reboot of the big green comic character, while the later is an R rated thriller that hopes to get writer/director M. Night Shyamalan back on track.
Two movies dropped off the top ten this week: Forgetting Sarah Marshall (12) and Speed Racer (14).
| This Week | Last Week | Title | Wknd Gross | Overall | Week in release |
| 1 | N | Kung Fu Panda | $60,239,130 | $60,239,130 | 1 |
| 2 | N | You Don't Mess with the Zohan | $38,531,374 | $38,531,374 | 1 |
| 3 | 2 | Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull | $22,793,630 | $253,014,750 | 3 |
| 4 | 1 | Sex and the City | $21,218,305 | $99,177,283 | 2 |
| 5 | 3 | The Strangers | $8,941,970 | $37,298,770 | 2 |
| 6 | 4 | Iron Man | $7,477,439 | $288,847,640 | 6 |
| 7 | 5 | The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian | $5,658,836 | $125,977,010 | 4 |
| 8 | 6 | What Happens in Vegas | $3,437,801 | $72,267,894 | 5 |
| 9 | 8 | Baby Mama | $806,750 | $57,931,215 | 7 |
| 10 | 9 | Made of Honor | $804,055 | $44,689,497 | 6 |
Box Office Predictions Recap
Not bad this week, definitely a step up from my sad choices last week. Of course, by guesstimation for Kung Fu Panda did fall well short of reality. The rest of my list was actually pretty close. My only incorrect placements were the swapping of Sex and the City and Indiana Jones, although the two were very close, and Speed Racer at number ten. The latter was already a box office failure, not helped this weekend by its leaving from more than 1,000 theaters.
Here is how the field matched up:
| Actual | Prediction | Title | Wknd Gross | Prediction |
| 1 | 1 | Kung Fu Panda | $60,239,130 | $48 million |
| 2 | 2 | You Don't Mess with the Zohan | $38,531,374 | $34 million |
| 4 | 3 | Sex and the City | $21,218,305 | $23 million |
| 3 | 4 | Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull | $22,793,630 | $22 million |
| 5 | 5 | The Strangers | $8,941,970 | $11 million |
| 6 | 6 | Iron Man | $7,477,439 | $8 million |
| 7 | 7 | The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian | $5,658,836 | $6 million |
| 8 | 8 | What Happens in Vegas | $3,437,801 | $4 million |
| 9 | 9 | Baby Mama | $806,750 | $1.5 million |
| 14 | 10 | Speed Racer | $427,547 | $1 million |
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