MARCH OF THE PENGUINS -- OVER 007
Monday, November 20 2006
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Box office analysts ought to have hedged their bets when it came to Casino Royale's chances over the weekend. Although the Sony/MGM movie was virtually their unanimous choice to outdistance the competition -- by far -- it ended up in second place, marched over by the animated penguins in Warner Bros.' Happy Feet. According to estimates released Monday, in a squeaker, the penguin movie earned $41.565 million, while the Bond flick raked in $41.145 million. Although the grosses for each film were regarded as solid, many analysts had predicted that they would be higher. Meanwhile, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, which had topped the box office for the last two weekends, fell to third place with about $14.35 million, to bring its total to $90.5 million. The top three films fell just $2.75 million short of reaching $100 million, a box office rarity. Nevertheless, on the same weekend a year ago, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire brought in $102.3 million on its own. Universal's Let's Go to Prison, a third film to open in wide release (not screened for critics), flopped with just $2.1 million, failing even to crack the top 10. The top ten films for the weekend, according to studio estimates compiled by ShowBIZ Data:
1. Happy Feet, $41.565 million; 2. Casino Royale, $41.145 million; 3. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, $14.65 million; 4. The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, $8.3 million; 5. Flushed Away, $6.6 million; 6. Stranger Than Fiction, $6.56 million; 7. Babel, $2.9 million; 8. Saw III, $2.75 million; 9. The Departed, $2.6 million; 10. The Queen, $2.2 million.
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