box_office

This weekend a film about pint-sized spies stormed the U.S. box office with a mammoth opening weekend. Playing at a massive 3.104 locations, Miramax scored it's first number one of the year with Spy Kids. Opening with $26.5 million dollars over the weekend, the Robert Rodriguez pic had a strong per theatre average of around $8,500, making it his personal best. Spy Kids stars Antonio Banderas and Carla Cugino as former spies that are captured, forcing their kids into a rescue mission. The family pic earned the third largest March opening in history behind Erin Brockovich ($28.1M) and Liar Liar ($31.4M). It is also the second largest opening weeked after Hannibal ($58M) in February.

Also opening this weekend was Fox's Someone Like You. The Ashley Judd-Greg Kinnear flick opened with $10M across 2,345 locations, averaging a decent $4,270 per theatre average. The raunchy sex comedy Tomcats didn't perform as expected, opening with a weak $6.4M to debut at number 4. The film opened wide across 2,617 theatres with a so-so per theatre average of
$2,450. However, with a production cost of just $11M, Tomcats should have no problems registering a profit.

Last week's number one Heartbreakers slipped to third place this weekend with $7.8M, a drop of just 34%. The Jennifer Love Hewitt starrer has made $23M dollars over the past 10 days, and with a budget of $40M, should have no problems passing the $50M mark domestically.

Sony's The Brothers dropped 46% this weekend with a weekend take of $5.6
million dollars. Produced for just $6M, it should end up with a domestic take of around $30M, turning a tidy profit.

Oscar winners Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Traffic both came off favourably this weekend with takes of $5.0M and $3.8M respectively. The Sony Classics pic (Crouching Tiger) has now accumalated $114M and is set to top $120M by the end of its domestic run. It has already become the highest grossing non-English language film in U.S. box office history, doubling the $56M take of the previous holder, Life is Beautiful. The USA Films ensemble piece Traffic has earned $113.6M to date, making it their biggest earner as well. To add to all their accolades, both films have spent each weekend of the year inside the Top Ten.

The Farrelly brothers-produced flick Say It Isn't So crashed out of the top ten this weekend falling a massive 64% to a take of just $1M. The film has grossed a mere $4.9M in ten days and should end its domestic run with a poor $7-8M. With a $30M production cost, Fox will be licking their wounds on this one.