The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend and ComingSoon.net’s The Weekend Warrior has a full analysis. Be sure to check back on Monday for final figures based on actual box office.
This was a busy pre-Christmas weekend with five new movies in wide release trying to shake up last week’s juggernaut duo of Will Smith’s I Am Legend (Warner Bros.) and the family comedy Alvin and the Chipmunks (Fox). The winner was clearly Nicolas Cage, starring in the first sequel of his career as he returned for producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s National Treasure: Book of Secrets (Disney), which grossed an estimated $45.5 million in its opening weekend. Dropping to second place, Will Smith’s sci-fi thriller I Am Legend (Warner Bros.) took a 56% tumble, grossing $34.3 million in its second weekend, but the family holiday comedy Alvin and the Chipmunks (Fox) wasn’t hit nearly as hard in its second weekend, adding roughly $29 million to its impressive take of $84.8 million.
Fourth place was a tight race between four enormous box office stars with Johnny Depp and Tim Burton on one side and Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts on the other, but the Hanks-Roberts political flick Charlie Wilson’s War (Universal) grossed an estimated $9.6 million to the $9.3 million made by the Burton-Depp musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (DreamWorks).
