U.S Box Office Report - 15th - 17th February 2008

1. Jumper - $27.2M - $33.8M
2. Step Up 2 The Streets -  $19.6M - $26.2
3. The Spiderwick Chronicles - $19M - $21.3M
4. Fool's Gold - $13M - $42M
5. Definitely, Maybe - $9.6M - $12.8M
6. Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins - $8.8M - $29.1M
7. Juno - $4.6M - $124M
8. The Bucket List - $4.1M - $81M
9.  Hannah Montana - $3.2M - $58.4M
10. 27 Dresses - $3.1M - $69.9M

This weekend's numbers are a bit higher than normal thanks to a Thursday opening for four of the new releases and it being President's Day tomorrow (a Monday holiday usually results in higher than normal Sunday numbers). The Doug Liman action thriller Jumper is the number one movie with ease this weekend. Starring Hayden Christensen as a guy who can teleport anywhere in an instant, Jumper is Liman's third straight hit in a row after The Bourne Identity & Mr & Mrs Smith. It's also a good score for Christensen, who has struggled to shake off the Star Wars films.


While reviews weren't anything to write home about the public loved it. That said, it had a tight race on Thursday, beating Step Up 2 by just $25k. Friday saw Jumper get into its stride and with only one wide opening release next weekend, it should see further decent weekend takings. As with The Bourne Identity, Jumper wasn't without its production problems, with cast members being replaced once filming was well under-way, but like Bourne, it seems to have been to the movie's benefit in the long term.

Step Up 2 The Streets is the sequel to the surprise 2006 hit movie Step Up which featured a delinquent finding escape via dance while doing community service at the Maryland School of Arts. This sequel jettisons all the original cast, keeping just the Maryland school location and the central plot of two kids from opposite sides of the track forming an unlikely romantic bond through dance. Unlike Step Up, this one cost around $35M to produce, a figure it should see by next weekend. This type of urban dance movie has risen in popularity in the last couple of years with movies such as Stomp The Yard, Take The Lead and You Got Served all making decent money. Step Up 2 will drop sharply next weekend (Urban dance movies appear to share the trajectory path of horror movies) but it's already achieved what it set out to do.

The latest kids film based on a series of successful novels hits the spot at three. The Spiderwicke Chronicles, based on the books by Tony Diterlizzi and Holly Black, tell the tale of identical twins who move to Spiderwicke House and discover a world of faeries and other odd creatures. Spiderwicke has opened quite a bit lower than Bridge to Terabithia did in roughly the same spot last year and that film went on to take over $80M by the end of its run, something that Spiderwicke needs to surpass given its rumoured $100M budget. This could go either way, Terabithia dug in and stayed in the top 12 for six weeks, and Spiderwicke faces no direct competition until Horton Hears a Who on March 14th, so a decent tally is possible. You can bet the studio was hoping for more though, and a disappointing Thursday take probably did little to alleviate those fears. Next weekend's take will be more telling for Spiderwicke than this weekend's in some regards. You can bet that Paramount wished they'd let the Indiana Jones trailer debut exclusively with the film rather than release it online on Thursday.

Fool's Gold sees a strong second weekend and appears to have been the Valentine movie of choice, comfortably beating rival Definitely, Maybe. If numbers hold then it could be looking at nearly $50M during the coming week and has every chance of rivalling the biggest movies of both its stars. Fool's Gold hasn't seen much of a global release so this romantic comedy could easily see another $75M in its pocket. Meanwhile, Definitely Maybe opens with a not bad $12.8M, on any other week that total might have got it into the top two.The Ryan Reynolds comedy which plot wise sounds dangerously similar to the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, saw a lower than expected Thursday but began to pick up a bit of speed as the weekend wore on and might have bested Fool's Gold had its location count been higher (just 2,204). This kind of movie shouldn't have cost too much so with foreign ticket sales and DVD should end up being quite profitable. Reynolds is still looking for that breakout hit after mixed success with Smokin' Aces, Just Friends and the barely released The Nines.

Roscoe Jenkins takes a bit of a tumble in chart position but still retains more than 54% of its business from last weekend. Losing out again to Fool's Gold, Roscoe faced competition from Jumper and Definitely Maybe as well so really had its work cut out for it. All that said, it's weekend to weekend drop is certainly better than the average Tyler Perry movie and this will comfortably recoup its $35M budget before leaving our screens.

Juno has now taken an amazing $124M and been in general release for 11 weeks, a large number spent in the top ten. This weekend sees just a 17% percentage drop from last weekend and only the slew of new releases have resulted in it moving down the chart. There's still every chance that it will further increase its success once the Oscars are announced next weekend. It's partner in crime, The Bucket List is also seeing some very low weekend to weekend percentage drops. While it hasn't been as successful as Juno, it's still managed to stay its ground and this weekend saw worldwide (Inc. US) ticket sales of $100M.

Hannah Montana fell hard last weekend and falls just as hard again. Anyone who missed out on release week and last weekend seems to have attended this weekend, just about keeping it in the top ten. Facing trouble on all sides, 27 Dresses was our romantic loser this weekend. It's current total is more than double its production budget and factoring in foreign ticket sales the film is sailing close to $85M.

Elsewhere, Diary of the Dead opened at 42 location and saw $240K.