U.S Box Office Report - 21st - 23rd September 2007

1. Resident Evil: Extinction - $24M - $24M
2. Good Luck Chuck - $14M - $14M
3. The Brave One -  $7.4M - $25M
4. 3:10 To Yuma - $6.3M - $37.9M
5. Eastern Promises -  $5.7M - $6.5M
6. Sydney White - $5.3M - $5.3M
7. Mr. Woodcock - $4.9M - $14.9M
8. Superbad - $3.1M - $116M
9. The Bourne Ultimatum - $2.8 - $M
10. Dragon Wars - $2.5M - $8.5M

This week sees three new releases in addition to a couple of movies that were in limited release expanding into more locations. This weekend also sees just two long standing releases in the charts - The Bourne Ultimatum and Superbad are the last two movies of the summer blockbusters - and both movies certainly live up to that moniker.

Resident Evil: Extinction takes the top spot and performs on track with RE:A back in 2004. That film opened to $23M so factoring in inflation, RE:E has slightly underperformed, but for this kind of movie, heavily front loaded, it won't matter a great deal. The Resident Evil series has a strong fanbase who've helped turn the series into a $250M success. It won't be long for the top spot but should clear $50M before finding equally strong success on DVD. Jovovich last saw success with RE:A, with the sci-fi action thriller Ultra Violet flopping in between that movie and this one. While RE:E is being billed as the final movie, only last week co-star Ali Larter revealed that there's every chance we'll see a Claire Redfield spinoff movie sometime in the future.

Our second new release is the rom-com Good Luck Chuck, featured Dane Cook as an cursed guy who discovers that every girl he's slept with has gone to on to find their soulmate in the very next person they've slept with. Trouble occurs when Cook's character falls for Jessica Alba. The film did decent business, although it may have lost a bit of its audience to Superbad and Mr Woodcock and certainly performed a bit better than Cook's last movie, Employee of the Month. The film also lost a bit thanks to confusing marketing attempting to pitch it as both a romantic date movie and a bawdy comedy.

The Brave One, after a lacklustre start last weekend drops off roughly 47% of business in it second outing. This might end up being Foster's lowest grossing wide release since 1999's Anna and The King, which ended up with just $39M. The female Death Wish movie only reached the top spot last weekend thanks to some poor competition and only a lack of new releases will keep it in the top ten for much longer.

The 3:10 to Yuma is that classic case of a well reviewed movie that's been released at the wrong time of year, ending up getting lost amongst showier but ultimately poorer movies. As mentioned in the report just the other week, director James Mangold and star Russell Crowe were both vocal about the movies release date being brought forward to the start of September. So far the film has taken $37M, from a budget of $50M and is showing some impressive week to week percentage drops. Expect this one to finish up around $50M but to show up again at awards time. It'll face competition soon from the Assassination of Jesse James.

Eastern Promises opened on just 21 screens last weekend and expanded onto a further 1400 in its second weekend of release. Strong word of mouth, pedigree of the stars and director, not to mention the much-vaunted nude fight featuring Viggo Mortensen have helped this still somewhat limited release to break in the higher end of the top ten. Eastern Promises marks the second teaming up of Mortensen and director David Cronenberg (their first being A History of Violence) and is released on the back of winning the audience award at the Toronto Film Festival. There's every chance that with that strong opening (one of the best location/takings in the top ten) the movie may yet expand further in the coming weeks.

The latest Amanda Bynes movie opens to a lowly $5.3M, perhaps justified for this teen updating of the Snow White story. Bynes stars as the titular heroine who finds herself kicked out of her college dorm and ending up rooming with seven 'dorks'. Bynes had moderate success with What A Girl Wants but that was back in 2003, since which She's The Man and Love Wrecked have both performed poorly. Bynes scored a success this year with Hairspray and it could be time for her to severe ties with the teen girl makes good genre.

Mr Woodcock, which saw $10M last weekend, loses roughly 50% of its audience this weekend and will be out of the top ten within a fortnight. Thornton will be seen next in an adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis' The Informers, while Seann William Scott appears in the long delayed Southland Tales in November.

Like it's fellow blockbuster The Bourne Ultimatum, Superbad just refuses to go quietly into the night. In its seventh week of release the movie has racked up an impressive $116M. Meanwhile, the aforementioned Bourne is approaching $225M in the US and a huge global total of $343M.

Dragon Wars rounds out the top ten. The big budget Korean flick is seeing its final week on the chart and should reach DVD before Christmas - which is what this theatrical release was really a big advertisement for.

Another limited release just outside the top ten is the Beatles inspired Across The Universe, taking $2M. Easily the best performing of the limited releases last weekend, Universe expands onto just 276 screens and should see further expansion in the coming weeks. Not bad for a film plagued with post production problems, with director Julie Taymor claiming Revolution had taken her off the film and edited it themselves.