Cinefantastique Online

What’s hot and what’s not in theatres. This category includes weekly results, plus occasional articles on foreign business and/or analysis of trends.

 
It’s been awhile since a STAR WARS film opened without dominating the box office, blasting the competition like the Death Star targeting a helpless planet. But that’s what happened this week: STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS opened in third place, earning $14.61-million in 3,452 theatres - the lowest STAR WARS debut since A NEW HOPE (1977) [...]

 
It was a close fight, but THE DARK KNIGHT held onto the #1 position for the third weekend in a row, according to weekend estimates, fending off a challenge from the newly released sequeld THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR. The MUMMY sequel opened in 3,760 theaters, earning a laudable $42.45-million and placing in [...]

 Some pictures have legs at the box office; THE DARK KNIGHT has wings. Christopher Nolan’s hard-boiled film noir reinterpretation of the Caped Crusader flew high above the competition, earning over $75-million - an incredibly impressive number for a film in its second weekend of release. That yielded a two-week total of $314.25-million - which is [...]

THE DARK KNIGHT dominated the box office on its opening weekend, selling more tickets than the remaining Top Ten films combined. The latest adventure of the Caped Crusader opened in 4,366 theatres, where it earned an awesome $155.34-million, according to weekend estimates. (By way of comparison, the previous film, BATMAN BEGINS, opened with $48.75-million and [...]

 It was a good weekend for cinefantastique at the box office. If you are only a bit liberal with the definitions of fantasy and science fiction, nine of the Top Ten films fell into the genres. If not for KIT KITTREDGE: AN AMERICAN GIRL at #8 (which pushed INCREDIBLE HULK down to #11), genre films [...]

 
Despite largely negative reviews, HANCOCK zoomed into the #1 position at the box office over the four-day holiday weekend. The superhero comedy, starring Will Smith, celebrated the fourth of July by opening on Wednesday, in 3,965 theatres, which gave it an added box office boost. The three-day Friday-to-Sunday estimate was $66.00-million. Including ticket sales from the [...]

WALL-E cleaned up at the box office, easily taking the #1 position despite strong competition from WANTED. Pixar’s wonderful animated film - about a lonely robot cleaning up Earth after the human population has left - wowed both critics and audiences. Having earned a 96% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, the film  opened in 3,992 American [...]

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN was released on May 16 of this year and quickly shot to the top of the box-office… for one week. Can’t fault it too much for a single week at the top of the pyramid, though. In a summer of mighty stiff competition even INDIANA could not hold the [...]

 
Apparently, there is still some laughter in that old shoe phone yet. GET SMART - the gadget-ridden spy spoof based on the ’60s television series - easily made it to #1 at the box office. Opening in 3,911 American theatres, the film earned $39.16-million. That was nearly three times as much as the weekend’s other [...]

THE INCREDIBLE HULK smashed its way into American 3,505 theatres this weekend, earning $54.54-million. That gave it an easy first-place win,surpassing last week’s winner, KUNG FU PANDA, which shuffled into second place with $34.32-million.
The weekend’s other big debut, THE HAPPENING, had to settle for third place, with $30.5-million earned in 2,986 theatres.
As for returning cinefantastique [...]