'Beverly Hills Chihuahua' captures $29 million from family audiences

By Sarah Sluis

As predicted, family-friendly Beverly Hills Chihuahua snagged the top spot this weekend, coming in just below the $30 million mark with a $29 million box-office take.  Families comprised 70% of the audience. In a week where most releases dropped 50% or less, competing family film Igor dropped 68.4% as families flocked to the new entry.

Other newcomer Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist finished at number three with $12 million, and execs expect strong word-of-mouth will carry the film through several more weeks with below-average box-office drops.  The field is favorable: no teen movies will release next week, and the three consecutive weeks will see Sex Drive (Oct 17), High School Musical 3 (Oct 24), and Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Oct. 31) release, none of which have a perfectly overlapping audience with Nick & Norah.  Both Michael Cera and Kat Dennings are reaching new levels of awareness among audiences, which makes me suspect that regardless of box office take, this film will be revisited in years to come as a launch pad for their stardom.

Dueling satires An American Carol ($3.8 million) and Religulous ($3.5 million) both finished in the top
ten. While below An American Carol, Religulous' highly targeted distribution strategy that emphasized running in theatres where political films like Farenheit 9/11 played well gave it an $6,972 per-theatre average, three times that of American Carol.

Eagle Eye, now the only substantial action film in the market, dropped a minimal 39% and finished at number two with $17.7 million.

Fireproof also dropped a minimal amount (40%) and took in another $4 million

With the crowded week, a few new releases premiered out of the top ten.  Flash of Genius finished at number 11 with a $2.3 million take, and Miramax's Blindness took in $2 million.  How to Lose Friends and Alienate People fared the worst, taking in only $1.4 million with an $801 per-theatre average.

Specialty release Rachel Getting Married earned $33,667 per screen opening up in nine locations, an

auspicious start for the film.  Appaloosa made a strong showing in its first week in wide release, finishing at number five and taking in $5 million.  When the film opened in eleven theatres two weeks ago, it made $17,775, half of what Rachel Getting Married pulled in.   While no wide release for Rachel has been set, if it follows in the footsteps of Appaloosa it could have a top ten finish in its future.

Full box office charts available here.