There was little guesswork with respect to box office prognostication this week, as The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was the only new release opening wide. It grossed $56.6 million at over 3,900 screens, and dutifully inherited the top spot from Marvel comic book adaptation Iron Man, which released its iron grip only nominally. The comic book adaptation still pulled in $31.2 million in its third week of release, and has now grossed an estimated $222.5 million.
Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher’s What Happens in Vegas held onto the third spot, adding another $13.9 to its coffers, good for $40.3 in its second week of release. The story of the Wachowski brothers’ Speed Racer as the box office bust of the spring continued, though; in its sophomore frame the gumball-colored family flick added a meager $7.6 million to its $29.8 million cumulative haul. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s Baby Mama held strong in fifth place — nudging out Made of Honor, which grossed $4.5 million for the week, and $33.7 overall to date, on the strength of Michelle Monaghan (three percent of its audience) and Patrick Dempsey’s stubble (the other 97 percent) — by delivering another
$4.6 million for distributor Universal, good for $47.3 million overall.
Fellow laffers Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay,
meanwhile, placed seventh and eighth for the weekend, grossing $2.5 and $1.8 million, respectively. The former film has now made $55 million, while the Harold & Kumar sequel has made $33.9 million to date.
Placing ninth was the time-spanning martial arts flick The Forbidden Kingdom, starring Jet Li, Jackie Chan
and that noodle-armed kid whose last name sounds like a disease,
with $1 million, and now $50.3 million overall. In the final spot was Tom McCarthy’s well-reviewed The Visitor, which pulled in $687,000 on only 224 screens. Falling out the top 10, meanwhile, were critically embraced Swiss Family Robinson-esque family flick Nim’s Island (which has grossed $45.2 million to date) and the critically maligned Prom Night
($43.5 million to date), featuring Brittany Snow. In other limited expanded releases, and Fox Searchlight’s Young @ Heart and Paramount Vantage’s Son of Rambow added 25 and 55 theaters, respectively.