U.S Box Office Report - 3th - 5th August 2007

1. The Bourne Ultimatum - $70.1M - $70.1M
2. The Simpsons Movie - $25.6M - $128.5M
3. Underdog -  $12M - $12M
4. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry - $10.5M - $91.6M
5. Hairspray - $9.3M - $78.9M
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - $9.2M - $260M
7. No Reservations -  $6.5M - $24.1M
8. Transformers - $5.9M - $296.3M
9. Hot Rod - $5M - $5M
10. Bratz - $4.3M - $4.3M

The Bourne Ultimatum is our number one movie this weekend, taking a whopping $70M in just three days. That opening is bigger than both previous Bourne movies and the film could now go on to be the most successful of the series. The original movie opened with little fanfare (save for the rumours of numerous production and post-production problems) back in 2002 and went on to make $121M. The sequel, The Bourne Supremacy opened much stronger with $52M before going on to take $176M. In a summer filled with threquels The Bourne Ultimatum is possibly the best reviewed of the lot and marks the biggest opening for Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass. We're pretty much in the tail end of summer now so Bourne should have little competition save for Rush Hour 3 next weekend. The film stands every chance of making $200M before summer is out.

After a stunning opening weekend, The Simpsons takes a massive hit, losing nearly 65% of its business on its second outing. The film crossed $100M on Thursday and while that much of a weekend to weekend drop is something of a worry, the film has already recouped its prodution budget nearly twice over. As suspected, the film was heavily front loaded - the vast majority of people interested in the movie saw it on the opening day or opening weekend, so a bigger than average drop was inevitable. The film is performing equally strong in the foreign market, almost matching the US takings dollar for dollar. Like Bourne above, The Simpsons Movie faces next to no competition in the coming weeks but with the sudden slow down in only its second weekend, it might now struggle to reach $200M.

The second of our new entries is Underdog, a live action film based on a cartoon series. Aimed at the under 8 market who might have found the Simpsons Movie a bit above them, the film took a not-too-bad $12M, which is what Firehouse Dog took in its entire theatrical run. With Ratatouille out of the top ten and reducing its location count, Underdog fitted into the family film slot pretty well. It won't have been budget busting either so should turn in a quick profit for Buena Vista.

Chuck & Larry is off about 45% from last weekend and now looks unlikely to perform as well as some of Sandler's bigger hits. This weekend marks the movie recouping its production budget and a final total around $110M shouldn't be far off. Had the film opened earlier in the summer it might not have faired as well as it has. Sandler will be seen next in Don't Mess with The Zohan, in which he plays a Mossad agent who fakes his own death to become a New York hairdresser. Similarly, Hairspray is off around 41% as it edges closer to $80M.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix overtook Prisoner of Azkaban this week and should overtake the $261M taking of Chamber of Secrets within the next few days. Including its US takings, the film currently has a global total of over $700M.

No Reservations, even with that seemingly low total, has a half decent second weekend on the chart, dropping 43%. As mentioned last weekend, had the film been released during a quieter period (Or perhaps Valentines Day?) it may well have had a good portion of the market to itself. As it is, the film had to contend with at least two major releases alongside some notable holdovers.

At seven is Transformers, sitting painfully short of that $300M mark (it should cross it during the coming week). The film is currently the fourth biggest of the year, sitting just behind Pirates 3.

Hot Rod is a our third new release this weekend. Expected to be a cult hit along the lines of Napoleon Dynamite, the film stars a few members of the current Saturday Night Live cast, alongside Ian Mcshane. $5M is a disappointing start for the movie (it's in 1000 more locations than Bratz) but for a movie like this, the theatrical release is just a warm up for DVD cultdom.

Our final new release is the toys to movie adaptation Bratz. Opening in only 1500 locations the movie had an average taking of $2,856 per screen. With three new releases next weekend, this one will fade fast.

Opening in a limited capacity was the biopic El Cantante, starring Marc Anthong and wife Jennifer Lopez.