Steve Carell washed most of the stench of
Evan Almighty off himself this weekend, headlining the big screen action-comedy adaptation of
Get Smart, which topped the box office with a better-than-expected $38.7 million in receipts. The other big entry of the week was Mike Myers'
The Love Guru, which didn't fare so well; budgeted at $60 million-plus, the comedy grossed an anemic $13.9 million on 3,012 screens.
Placing second and third, in a photo finish, were Universal's reboot of
The Incredible Hulk, with another $22.1
million in receipts, and the animated family flick
Kung Fu Panda, which used a lack of direct genre competition and voice work from
Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman and
Angelina Jolie to add $21.9 million to its $155.8 million domestic haul thus far in three weekends of theatrical release.
Rounding out the top 10 were writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's
The Happening ($10.5 million, $50.8 overall) in fifth place, followed by:
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($8.5 million, $291 million overall); Adam Sandler's
You Don't Mess with the Zohan ($7.5 million, $84.3 million overall);
Sex and the City, starring
Sarah Jessica Parker, ($6.5 million, $132.5 million);
Iron Man ($4 million, $304.8 million cumulatively); and the well-crafted horror-thriller
The Strangers,
$2.1 million, $49.8 million).
Opening in limited release,
Kitt Kitredge: An American Girl, starring
Abigail Breslin, picked up
a whopping $220,000 on only five screens, while Sony Pictures Classics'
Brick Lane grossed $47,000 and change at seven theaters. Continuing to fare quite well were
Mongol ($1.15 million in less than three weeks of release) and
The Visitor ($7.2 million in 10-plus weeks of release), while John Cusack's sprawling satire
War, Inc. added a screen and $57,000 to its domestic tally of $328,000.
