Last weekend marks the third in a row that the Ben Stiller comedy Night at the Museum held the top spot in the North American box office, raking in $24 million. This adaptation of the popular children’s book now has a total gross of $164 million. It should be noted, however, that Night at the Museum was widely released, being shown in over 3,700 theaters, which means its average is only $6,434/theater, one of the lowest in this weeks top 5.
In at the number two position for the second week straight is The Pursuit of Happyness, a real-life drama starring Will Smith. With a weekend earning of $12 million, this film has averaged out at only $4,294/theater, bringing it’s 4 week total gross to approximately $124 million.
Taking a big jump from it’s first week opening at number twenty-two, the Clive Owen sci-fi thriller Children of Men experienced a much wider release, pushing it up to number three with a weekend total of $10.3 million. At $8,515/theater, I think we can expect this one to hold steady or possibly move up a notch as the positive reviews continue to pour in.
The teacher drama Freedom Writers, starring Hilary Swank, debuted at a pretty unimpressive (yet absolutely unsurprising) number 4, for a total weekend sales of 9.7 million. And lastly we have Dreamgirls, featuring Eddie Murphy and Beyonce Knowles, which refuses to leave the top 5 without a fight as it followed closely at 8.7 million. Dreamgirls may have slipped two places from last week, but still managed to maintain an average sales per theater of $10,357, the highest of the weekend.
