By Katey Rich
Welcome to the New Year, not all that different from the old one. Well, mostly not all that different. Just like last weekend, National Treasure: Book of Secrets ruled the land, coming in at #1 for the third weekend in a row with a total of $20 million. In a rare show of sense from the moviegoing public, I Am Legend landed at #2 again, after a brief scare last week in which Alvin and the Chipmunks actually made more money (the singing rodents came in at #4 with $16 million this time around).
The real story of the weekend, though, is Juno, which pulled off a daring 900 theatre expansion and won big, coming in at #3 with a $16 million haul. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this one is playing well across the board; over the weekend my mother, father, sister and my college-age brother's girlfriend all went to see it together. When you can see a movie about pregnancy with your son's underage girlfriend, you know you have a winner.
The other surprise was the performance of One Missed Call, which pulled off a #5 slot and $13 million. The American appetite for killer technology horror movies is too depressing to think about at the moment, so let's move on to the rest of the top 10, which pretty much fell in line with last week's results. Charlie Wilson's War dropped a bit and landed at #6, with $8 million, while P.S. I Love You, The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, and Sweeney Todd all held steady at positions 7, 8, and 9, respectively. One Missed Call seemed to hurt Alien vs. Predator the most, knocking the sci-fi battle from #6 to #11.
Rounding out the top ten was Atonement, which did an impressive yo-yo act by building its audience once more after falling out of the ten a few weeks ago. The movie added 273 theaters and made $5 million, a 64% jump. In a perfect world the prestige picture would be set to build a huge audience after the Golden Globes are handed out, but since signs are pointing to a Globes ceremony that won't be televised, that attention probably won't come.
After the jump is the full top 20 from Box Office Mojo. Notice The Great Debaters at #12, having failed to boost its audience despite adding 100 theatres (and having Oprah tub-thumping for it-- hey, it worked for Barack Obama). Also, There Will Be Blood and The Orphanage are doing stellar business in limited release, with Blood earning the highest per-theatre average of the weekend ($26,215). Look for those numbers to only increase when Blood expands next weekend to 125 theatres, finally reaching all of the cities that have been hearing the critical buzz and clamoring for a bit of Paul Thomas Anderson for weeks now.
| TW | LW | Title (click to view) | Studio | Weekend Gross | % Change | Theater Count / Change | Average | Total Gross | Budget* | Week # | |
| 1 | 1 | National Treasure: Book of Secrets | BV | $20,225,000 | -43.3% | 3,762 | -70 | $5,376 | $171,033,000 | - | 3 |
| 2 | 3 | I Am Legend | WB | $16,300,000 | -40.5% | 3,648 | +12 | $4,468 | $228,638,000 | - | 4 |
| 3 | 5 | Juno | FoxS | $16,225,000 | +52.6% | 1,925 | +906 | $8,428 | $52,032,000 | - | 5 |
| 4 | 2 | Alvin and the Chipmunks | Fox | $16,000,000 | -44.9% | 3,462 | -22 | $4,621 | $176,738,000 | $60 | 4 |
| 5 | N | One Missed Call | WB | $13,525,000 | - | 2,240 | - | $6,037 | $13,525,000 | - | 1 |
| 6 | 4 | Charlie Wilson's War | Uni. | $8,184,000 | -31.9% | 2,594 | +19 | $3,154 | $52,630,000 | $75 | 3 |
| 7 | 7 | P.S. I Love You | WB | $8,010,000 | -13.8% | 2,471 | +7 | $3,241 | $39,378,000 | - | 3 |
| 8 | 8 | The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep | SonR | $6,300,000 | -31.4% | 2,777 | +5 | $2,268 | $30,893,000 | - | 2 |
| 9 | 9 | Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street | P/DW | $5,400,000 | -34.1% | 1,249 | - | $4,323 | $38,472,000 | $50 | 3 |
| 10 | 14 | Atonement | Focus | $5,124,000 | +64.1% | 583 | +273 | $8,789 | $19,216,000 | - | 5 |
| 11 | 6 | Aliens Vs. Predator - Requiem | Fox | $4,250,000 | -57.8% | 2,617 | +6 | $1,623 | $36,821,000 | - | 2 |
| 12 | 11 | The Great Debaters | MGM/W | $4,245,000 | -29.3% | 1,290 | +119 | $3,290 | $22,008,000 | - | 2 |
| 13 | 10 | Enchanted | BV | $3,676,000 | -42.8% | 1,932 | -330 | $1,902 | $119,689,000 | - | 7 |
| 14 | 12 | The Golden Compass | NL | $2,730,000 | -41.7% | 1,611 | -324 | $1,694 | $65,521,000 | $180 | 5 |
| 15 | 15 | No Country for Old Men | Mira. | $1,843,000 | -16.9% | 819 | -141 | $2,250 | $44,785,000 | - | 9 |
| 16 | 16 | The Kite Runner | ParV | $1,706,000 | -7.6% | 380 | +3 | $4,489 | $8,728,000 | - | 4 |
| 17 | 13 | Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story | Sony | $1,700,000 | -55.9% | 2,041 | -609 | $832 | $17,183,000 | $35 | 3 |
| 18 | 32 | There Will Be Blood | ParV | $1,337,000 | +601.0% | 51 | +49 | $26,215 | $1,845,000 | - | 2 |
| 19 | 27 | The Orphanage | PicH | $501,000 | +114.7% | 66 | +47 | $7,590 | $918,000 | - | 2 |
| 20 | 18 | The Savages | FoxS | $455,000 | -13.0% | 110 | -1 | $4,136 | $2,553,000 | - | 6 |
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