Weekend Roundup: The #1 Vantage

By Katey Rich

For most of us movie fiends the weekend was all about Oscar, Oscar, Oscar! But out in the rest of the world people were still headed to the multiplex, and among their less-than-stellar choices Vantage Point came out on top. The movie managed $24 million, a solid lead over second place holdover Jumper ($12 million). The situation for Vantage Point's fellow freshmen was quite grimmer; Be Kind Rewind is the only one that managed to crack the top ten, and even limited by its 808 theatre rollout, it made just $4 million, good for 7th place. Now's the time to get cranky with all the critics who didn't recognize Be Kind for all its delights and recommend it as an alternative to Fool's Gold.

Speaking of the McConaughey-Hudson vehicle, it's sticking around in 5th place, with $6.2 million. It was edged out this weekend by newer holdovers The Spiderwick Chronicles ($12.6 million) and Step Up 2 The Streets ($9.7 million), which landed at #3 and #4, respectively. The last of the President's Day weekend releases, Definitely, Maybe, continued to underperform, landing at #6 with $5.2 million. It's a shame we can't blame the critics for letting this one slide; they definitely liked it and still everyone wants to see Fool's Gold instead.

The rest of the top ten was filled out by the Oscar nominees with the most staying power, Little Miss Juno at #8 with $4.1 million and There Will Be Blood drinking milkshakes at #10 with $2.5 million. Oh, and Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, a movie I had completely forgotten about, was sandwiched between them with $3.9 million.

Check out the full top 20 after the jump, which includes two more of our Best Picture nominees, No Country for Old Men and Atonement, as well as the two other releases this weekend. Happily, the American people were smart enough to stay away from something with the word Witless in the title, and left the new Larry the Cable Guy offering alone. Charlie Bartlett, the offbeat teen comedy, fared even worse, with $1.8 million. I was also surprised to see Hannah Montana still hovering out there, given that whole "one-week extension!" hype after the Super Bowl weekend run was such a hit. I guess there's not much room for truth in advertising when you're milking the cash cow.

TW	LW	Title (click to view)	Studio	Weekend Gross	% Change	Theater Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Budget*	Week #
1	N	Vantage Point	Sony	$24,000,000	-	3,149	-	$7,621	$24,000,000	$40	1
2	1	Jumper	Fox	$12,650,000	-53.8%	3,430	+2	$3,688	$56,206,000	$85	2
3	2	The Spiderwick Chronicles	Par.	$12,600,000	-33.7%	3,847	-	$3,275	$43,576,000	$90	2
4	3	Step Up 2 the Streets	BV	$9,787,000	-48.2%	2,480	+10	$3,946	$41,419,000	-	2
5	4	Fool's Gold	WB	$6,270,000	-51.4%	3,075	-50	$2,039	$52,433,000	-	3
6	5	Definitely, Maybe	Uni.	$5,184,000	-46.9%	2,220	+16	$2,335	$21,781,000	-	2
7	N	Be Kind, Rewind	NL	$4,100,000	-	808	-	$5,074	$4,100,000	-	1
8	7	Juno	FoxS	$4,100,000	-11.1%	1,727	-138	$2,374	$130,377,000	-	12
9	6	Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins	Uni.	$3,989,000	-53.1%	1,873	-514	$2,129	$35,498,000	$35	3
10	12	There Will Be Blood	ParV	$2,561,000	-15.5%	1,402	-8	$1,826	$34,986,000	-	9
11	8	The Bucket List	WB	$2,555,000	-36.0%	1,902	-405	$1,343	$85,154,000	$45	9
12	14	No Country for Old Men	Mira.	$2,275,000	+20.8%	1,101	+176	$2,066	$64,162,000	-	16
13	N	Witless Protection	LGF	$2,190,000	-	1,333	-	$1,642	$2,190,000	-	1
14	N	Charlie Bartlett	MGM	$1,820,000	-	1,122	-	$1,622	$1,820,000	-	1
15	10	27 Dresses	Fox	$1,625,000	-49.2%	1,367	-569	$1,188	$73,094,000	$30	6
16	9	Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour	BV	$1,516,000	-53.5%	613	-72	$2,473	$61,876,000	-	4
17	11	The Eye	LGF	$1,300,000	-59.2%	1,211	-918	$1,073	$28,830,000	-	4
18	17	Atonement	Focus	$1,186,000	-18.4%	755	-29	$1,570	$49,373,000	-	12
19	26	U2 3D	NGC	$1,075,000	+163.5%	686	+646	$1,567	$4,892,000	-	5
20	22	In Bruges	Focus	$741,000	-23.6%	163	+51	$4,546	$2,747,000	-	3