Box Office Report: First of the new year (but same crappy movies)

Dude here again. Coming at you with a whole new year's worth of box office numbers. It's 2008, and even though there is a supreme lack of flying cars and robot manservants, it's still pretty okay. Besides, with the amount of jerks who can't drive (especially in LA), flying cars are probably not the best idea in the world, anyway.

This weekend, we had one new movie open. A lot of smaller, award caliber films expanded their screen counts, but really, only one movie opened to set the new year off right. Did it succeed? Let's go to the numbers, shall we? (All in millions, remember, and these are the studio estimates, the actuals will be available on Monday. Just to prove me wrong).

1. National Treasure: Book Of Secrets (BV)- $20.2, 3762 screens, week 3, $171.0 total

2. I Am Legend (WB) - $16.3, 3648 screens, week 4, $228.6 total

3. Juno (FoxS) - $16.2, 1925 screens, week 5, $52.0 total

4. Alvin and the Chipmunks (Fox) - $16.0, 3462 screens, week 4, $176.7 total

5. One Missed Call (WB)- $13.5, 2240 screens, week 1, $13.5 total

6. Charlie WIlson's War (Uni) - $8.1, 2594 screens, week 3, $52.6 total

7. P.S. I Love You (WB) - $8.0, 2471 screens, week 3, $39.3 total

8. The Waterhorse (Sony) - $6.3, 2777 screens, week 2, $30.8 total

9. Sweeney Todd (Par/DW) - $5.4, 1249 screens, week 3, $38.4 total

10. Atonement (Focus) - $5.1, 583 screens, week 5, $19.2 total

So those are the numbers, but what do they mean? Well, it means that National Treasure has taken the top spot for 3 weeks in a row, just like the previous film did, and Book of secrets seems to be even more profitable, which means we can definitely anticipate a third chapter in the series, involving Nicolas Cage discovering something amazing from America's past that nobody really cares about so long as there's a glowing treasure at the end of it.

The next three spots there, I Am Legend, Juno and Alvin, seem to be caught in a three way tie, that I imagine some studio number crushers (unaffected by the recent strike) will suddenly discover that their movie made more than the other two. And it will probably be that damn chipmunk movie, because the universe likes to torture me.

The new movie that was released, One Missed Call, yet another entry in the "Let's remake every Japanese ghost movie from the past ten years, but make them really bland and forgettable so that it only does a week's worth of decent business." With a power lead like Ed Burns, who could have missed this flick? All I know is the preview was really annoying. And yet, it stilled pulled in $13 million dollars. Sometimes, even I get surprised by these things.

Below the radar, There Will Be Blood, added 49 more screens to take $1,337,000, a whopping 601%increase over last weekend. It once again contains the highest per screen average of $26,215. Not bad at all, and that movie will only continue to grow, until the $20 million mark, where PT Anderson movies generally all end up. Just sayin...

And in the "Because It's There" series: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story took in $1,700,000 on 2041 screens, bringing it's grand total to $17,183,000 in 3 weeks.

There you have my break down. Next week brings a whole new host of movies begging for your hard earned dollars. All money better spent just giving it to me. Seriously, wouldn't you rather say "I gave money to the Dude" versus "I gave money to Alvin and the Chipmunks"? I think we all would prefer that.

Until next weekend....