U.S Box Office Report - 31st Aug - 1st Sept 2007

1. Halloween -  $26.5M - $26.5M
2. Superbad -  $12.2M - $89M
3. Balls of Fury - $11.6M - $11.6M
4. The Bourne Ultimatum - $10.1M - $199M
5. Rush Hour 3 - $8.2M - $120M
6. Mr. Bean's Holiday -  $5.9M - $19M
7. The Nanny Diaries - $5.1M - $15M
8. Death Sentence - $4.1M - $4.1M
9. War - $3.6M - $16.4M
10. Stardust - $3M - $30M

Labour Day weekend and the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween sets a record for a new release of this holiday period (The Sixth Sense actually took more but that wasn't in its opening weekend). The much criticized (before and after its release) horror movie is also a record for director Rob Zombie, whose House of a 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects both performed much better on DVD than during their theatrical run. Playing on knowledge of the original movie while roping in a whole new generation of horror fans, the film has probably already recouped its production budget (no figures are available as yet) and may well have already greenlit a sequel come Tuesday morning. This should be a very profitable movie for MGM and Weinstein company, the latter being in dire need of a hit. It won't be number one next weekend but could easily see $55-60M.

Superbad is off 32% in its third weekend on the charts as it edges closer to the $100M barrier. The film has practically every other foreign market awaiting its release and the good word of mouth should propel it to some impressive box office outside of the US (same with the similarly produced Knocked Up). Next up for co-star Seth Rogen is drug comedy The Pineapple Express.

The Bourne Ultimatum will see $200M by the end of the labour day weekend. It's already the most successful of the franchise and could still finish its domestic run with a box office total around $235M. A critical and financial success, the film is one of the few threquels of the summer of 2007 not to disappoint. The film is still awaiting release in a number of major foreign markets.

Our second new release is the comedy Balls of Fury, starring Dan Fogler and Christopher Walken. Walken plays a crime lord who organises a deadly table tennis tournament, with Fogler playing a fallen champion charged with infiltrating and bringing down the organisation. The box office for this one disappoints, more so when you consider the film opened on Wednesday. Most people gave this a wide berth and went to see Halloween or Superbad (again). This will vanish quickly and be on DVD before November.

Rush Hour 3 hasn't impressed in the foreign market and is still struggling to recoup its production budget with its US takings. It will see a slight improvement with the extra days holiday this weekend but is certainly in free fall now and won't even reach the $141M taken by the original Rush Hour movie back in 1998.

Mr Bean's Holiday has crossed $200M in total box office this weekend and is off around 40% in its second weekend of release in the US. It's opening weekend wasn't too bad considering its relatively low location count (just 1765) and its had to share this weekend with three wide new releases. Atkinson has stated this will be the last outing for the Mr Bean character and with that box office take, its a hell of a swansong.

The Nanny Diaries didn't do much business last weekend and it hasn't picked up any additional business in its second frame. The move from the middle of summer to the August had already done enough damage before the film was even released. It might just make another weekend on the charts but it's already been forgotten by most.

Our final new release is the Kevin Bacon revenge thriller Death Sentence. This garnered mostly average reviews but was expected to perform a bit better than it has. Directed by James Wan, who'd already had one release in cinemas this year (horror flop Dead Silence), Death Sentence was something of a throwback to 70s vigilantes flicks, particularly the Death Wish series. This will almost certainly be its only week on the charts.

War drops from fifth to ninth in only its second weekend and would have probably done better had it gone straight to DVD. Next for Statham is the Uwe Boll directed Dungeon Siege movie, The Bank Job and Death Race while Li has Warlords and The Forbidden Kingdom in post-production and had just begun work on The Mummy 3.

Stardust crosses the $30M mark this weekend, having never really made much impact on the box office since its release. Up next for director Matthew Vaughn is the comic book adaptation Thor.

3:10 To Yuma opened in a limited capacity this weekend and will expand into 2500 locations next weekend.