U.S Box Office Report - 22nd - 24th June 2007

1. Evan Almighty - $32.1M - $32.1M
2. 1408 -  $20.1M - $20.1M
3. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - $20.1M - $97.6M
4. Ocean's Thirteen - $11.3M - $91M
5. Knocked Up -  $10.6M - $108.9M
6. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - $7.2M - $287M
7. Surf's Up - $6.7M - $47.7M
8. Shrek the Third - $5.7M - $307.9M
9. Nancy Drew - $4.5M - $16.1M
10. A Mighty Heart - $4M - $4M

Evan Almighty, the sequel to the Jim Carrey movie Bruce Almighty, opens at the top spot with ease. $32.1M is pretty decent for a comedy, not to mention a semi-sequel (Steve Carrell & Morgan Freeman reprise their roles) but in the case of Evan Almighty, practically any box office is going to be disappointing to some degree. Evan Almighty is the most expensive comedy ever made and may even sit in the top twenty most expensive movies ever made, with a budget rumoured to be north of $200M thanks to the extensive use of live and CGI animals, alongside a biblical flood. Universal even targeted the bible belt, dropping the rating to PG and playing up the religious aspects to secure those lucrative dollars. To be honest, it's probably worked and regardless of the budget, Evan Almighty opened pretty much as expected. Now it needs to dig in and get $100M in the bank and do it fast because the summer competition is about to get white hot.

1408, an adaptation of a Stephen King short story opens with an impressive $20.1M, making it the most successful opening weekend for a King adaptation (The Green Mile held the record previously with an opening weekend take of $18M). The movie features John Cusack and Samuel L Jackson as a paranormal debunker and hotel manager respectively. The title refers to a room in Jackson's hotel which has been witness to numerous mysterious deaths, a room which Cusack is happy to spend a night in, so sure is he that it's just smoke and mirrors... . King adaptations are surely the most notorious of all adapted stories - over 35 have made their way to the screen (and that's excluding TV movies) with decidedly mixed results; and there's more to come, the Eli Roth directed Cell and Frank Darabont's The Mist to name just two. King mentioning how much he enjoyed 1408 on his blog can't have done any harm. Are the horror crowd bored of gore & torture and hankering for old fashion scares? With that opening it would appear so.

Last week's surprise taking for FF4:2 hasn't carried over into its second weekend, with a pretty huge drop of 65%. Luckily the movie wasn't a budget smasher and should see a domestic profit before the end of its run, but won't best the $154M take of the first movie. The film has a global total of $125M. Ocean's 13 edges closer to the magic $100M and is performing equally well in the international market, where the other 'Ocean's' movies performed stronger than the domestic one.

Knocked Up continues to do well in a packed market, down by just 24% from last weekend and crossed the $100M barrier on Friday. The movie is also the second biggest R-rated movie of the year after March's 300. Pirates 3 starts to breathe easier, feeling confident that it will pass the $300M mark by the end of its domestic run. In the international market the film appears to be showing no sign of slowing down, edging ever closer to $600M. Pirates 3 should finish just short of $1 billion total box office when it leaves the market.

Two CGI movies drop in next, one doing significantly better than the other. Surf's Up might end up with over $50M, a disappointment for Sony. The movie failed to capitalize on the stop gap before the release of Pixar's Ratatouille, and should have been able to handle Shrek The Third given that that movie was in its third week of release. Shrek The Third crossed the $300M mark on Wednesday, only the second release of this year to do so. Both movies will see their family market share seriously slashed with next week's release of Ratatouille. That said, Ratatouille has its work cut out to best Shrek The Third's impressive take.

Nancy Drew stays in the chart simply due to the lack of new releases. It won't be here next weekend and will be on DVD by September. A bit of misstep for Warner Bros but it could have a nice little direct to DVD franchise to work with.

Rounding out the top ten is the Michael Winterbottom true story drama 'A Mighty Heart', starring Angelina Jolie as the wife of a journalist who's disappeared in Pakistan. The movie, based on the book by Marianne Pearl (Who Jolie portrays in the movie) garnered some impressive reviews for Jolie's performance, with some going as far as saying we're seeing the first serious Oscar contender of 2007. The film opened at just 1355 locations and has done well to find a market amongst the showy blockbuster thrills, it's controversial subject matter not being a selling point either.