Source:Box Office Mojo, Edward Douglas

March 24, 2008

The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend. Be sure to check back on Monday for final figures based on actual box office.

Easter weekend saw the release of three new movies in wide release, but Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who (20th Century Fox) featuring the voices of Jim Carrey and Steve Carell remained on top for the second weekend, grossing an estimated $25.1 million, a drop of 44% from last week. It has grossed $86.5 million in its first ten days compared to its production budget of $85 million.

Coming in second was Tyler Perry's fourth film based on one of his stageplays, Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns starring Angela Bassett, which grossed an estimated $20 million in half as many theaters as "Horton," averaging just under $10 thousand per site. It opened lighter than Perry's last movie Why Did I Get Married? as well as his first two hits Madea's Family Reunion and Diary of a Mad Black Woman.

Third place was a close race between the other two new movies, 20th Century Fox's Asian horror remake Shutter and Owen Wilson's new comedy Drillbit Taylor. The PG-13 horror flick came out slightly ahead of the Judd Apatow produced movie with $10.7 million to the $10.2 million made by Drillbit Taylor in its first three days.

Roland Emmerich's prehistoric epic 10,000 BC (Warner Bros.) dropped to fifth place with $8.7 million, down 48% from last week with a three week gross of $76.1 million.

Summit Entertainment's mixed martial arts drama Never Back Down held up better in its second weekend, grossing an estimated $4.9 million to bring its total to $16.8 million in sixth place.

Dropping to #7, the G-rated Disney road comedy College Road Trip made $4.6 million in its third weekend to bring its total to $32 million.

Jason Statham's crime-drama The Bank Job (Lionsgate) is turning into a real sleeper hit, pulling ahead of the Sony political thriller Vantage Point (Sony) in their third weekend together. For the second week in a row, The Bank Job dropped less than 20% adding another $4.1 million to its take of $19.4 million. Vantage Point pulled in another $3.8 million to bring its total to $65 million.

Fox Searchlight enjoyed a surprise hit with the Hispanic community with Patricia Riggen's Under the Same Moon, which opened in 266 theaters on Wednesday and was able to gross $3.3 million in its first five days, averaging an impressive $9,781 per site over the three-day holiday weekend, which was enough to get it into the Top 10. Produced by America Ferrara, the festival favorite had the second highest per-theater average in the Top 12 right after Tyler Perry's new movie.

Neil Marshall's Doomsday (Universal) dropped 56% and right out of the Top 10 with $2.2 million in its second weekend with a total gross of $8.9 million.

After a weekend where the Top 10 grossed more than the same period last year, things were back to normal with this weekend's offerings down 19% from last year where Warner Bros.' TMNT came out on top of six new wide releases, although they weren't helped or hurt by Easter weekend as this week's offerings may have been.

Click here for the full box office estimates of the top 12 films.