U.S Box Office Report - 3rd - 5th March 2006

1. Madea's Family Reunion - $13M - $48.1M
2. 16 Blocks - $11.7M - $11.7M
3. Eight Below - $10.3M - $58.8M
4. Ultraviolet - $9M - $9M
5. Aquamarine - $7.5M - $7.5M
6. The Pink Panther - $7M - $69.8M
7. Block Party - $6.52M - $6.52M
8. Date Movie - $5.12M - $40.7M
9. Curious George - $4.4M - $49.2M
10. Firewall - $3.6M - $42.5M

Four new entries this week and none of them can hold a candle to Madea, which lost just roughly half its business from last weekend. It continues to perform well and has now made its budget back over nine times. You can bet that further Madea adventures will become a yearly staple (there's another 5 to go). Curiously enough, after being the biggest opening weekend of 2006 so far last weekend, this weekend it became the number one movie with the lowest gross of 2006 so far.

Bruce Willis crashes into second spot with 16 Blocks, which took only a little more than his last starring effort, Hostage. Could ensemble movies be the way to go for Willis or should he dust off that Die Hard 4 script? Performing well in 3rd place is the Paul Walker Dogs in Arctic peril movie. After the failure of Running Scared last weekend, people will happily watch Walker with dogs but not without them? Still the movie is performing well and has already recouped its budget.

Kurt Wimmer returns with the long delayed Ultra Violet and takes more in one day (let alone the weekend) than his previous movie did in its entire run. Equilibrium took a box office total of $1.2M, from a very limited number of screens and almost no hype or ads at all. Violet has performed much better but until very recently the movie didn't even have a release date. It only cost $£30M so should break even and go on to be an even bigger success on DVD (similar to Equilibrium did).

Family mermaid comedy Aquamarine didn't perform as well despite being on more screens than any other movie in the top ten with the exception of 16 Blocks. It had the kid-teen market all to itself as Curious George is aimed at an even younger market. Too busy a week or just not appealing?

Continuing to outperform expectations, Pink Panther takes a bit of tumble but still manages to come within a few million of at least two major new releases. This from a movie in its fourth week of play, it's now only $11M short of recouping its production budget. The higher it climbs the more chance there will be for a sequel, and the movie has yet to debut in many overseas territories.

An impressive debut for Block Party given that it's only on 1200 screens. Perhaps this could be levelled at the massive appeal of Dave Chappelle, who rounded up the people for the concert and performs himself, as well as acting as compare for the show. The Michel Gondry directed movie features stand up and musical performances from Kanye West, Mos Def & The Fugees. (though it had one of the highest screen-takings ratios, the studio has expressed disappointment with the numbers (!!!))

The rest of the top ten is rounded out by three older movies, with Curious George having performed the best of the three. Expect to see them vanish next weekend. While Date Movie & George are in profit and about to be in profit respectively, Firewall has a long way to go yet. Should Ford consider going with his gut instead? (he turned down Clooney's role Syriana to make Firewall)

Transamerica moves up a few places, thanks in part to its best actress nomination while Brokeback & Capote both sit just outside the top ten.