U.S Box Office Report - 22nd - 24th July 2005

1. Charlie & The Chocolate Factory - $28M - $114M
2. The Wedding Crashers - $26M - $80M
3. Fantastic Four - $12M - $122M
4. The Island - $12M - $12M
5. Bad News Bears - $11.5 - $11.5M
6. War of the Worlds - $8.8 - $208M
7. Hustle & Flow - $8.1 - $8.1M
8. The Devil's Rejects - $7M - $7M
9. Batman Begins - $4.7M - $191M
10. March of the Penguins - $4.3M - $9M

Well the big news of the week has to be the massive flop that is The Island. A $12M return for a movie with a budget of $100M (+ prints and ads) has to got to sting like hell. Especially considering the critical drubbing Charlie & FF got (not that that counts for much).

Estimates had The Island at least opening at number one but number four for a wide release (we're talking nearly 4000 screens) is particularly bad. More so considering it actually looked pretty good and had a half decent concept. Expect to see it drop even further next week and have its DVD release announced by the start of August.

Charlie had a very strong second weekend and good word of mouth is doing wonders for the Wedding Crashers. Elsewhere the Bad News Bears opened to a disappointing tally as well but given the budget, it's not as bad a hit.

Curiously, The Devil's Rejects, which is a sequel, an R Rated Movie & a horror movie, took a respectable $7M on 1700 screens. Elsewhere, the golden child of sundance, Hustle & Flow, opened at the low end of expectations.

Fast becoming the summer sleeper, March of the Penguins added 563 screens this week and saw its profits rise very nicely. The movie is still only being shown on less than 700 screens but could still score $4M. Of the movies released in the past month, March has had the best screen to ticket ratio of any of them.

Next week adds another 3 wide opening movies. The high-concept no-brainer oscar-winner-starring Stealth hits screens. Computer piloted plane out of control. Has to be stopped by three hotshot pilots (Josh Lucas, Jamie Foxx & Jessica Biel). Has flop written all over it (but The Island had $50M plus opening written over it so go figure)

In counter programming, we have Must Love Dogs, a John Cusack/Diane Lane online dating comedy and for the kids, Sky High, a movie set in a world full of superheroes, with a teenage son of one of them struggling to find his identity and powers.

One other movie opening on about 3 screens is the red hot comedy/documentary, The Aristocrats.