Hollywood Deep

20th Century Fox’s “The Simpsons Movie”, opened in theaters on July 27, raking in $71.9 million as the top movie this week. Homer and company’s big screen debut rolled over the competition, sending last week’s top movie, Universal Studio’s “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry,” to second place with $19 million, a 44 percent drop. Beating out all industry expectations for an explosive number one opening and grossed more than the next four biggest hits combined. “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” from Warner Bros., fell to third place with $17.1 million, a 48 percent drop from last week. The Potter film grossed $242 million domestically after three weeks in theaters. Starting to look like it might be fading out a bit, after a huge opening weekend, spending only one week at #1.
“The Simpsons”, has been a FOX TV ratings standout for an unbelievable 18 years. It is the show that helped put FOX on the map, making it another “network” channel. The show seems like it will go on forever, and now it’s a number one movie also. This adult cartoon has always stayed timely and entertaining over the years, no wonder its loyal fans came out for the movie. “The Simpsons Movie” now rivals “Team America” as my favorite animated movie of all time.
Four films dropped out of the top ten over the weekend. The Warner Bros. romantic comedy “License to Wed” tumbled 64% to an estimated $1.3M lifting its cume to $41.7M. A mediocre $44M final should result for the Robin Williams pic. Rival comedy “Knocked Up” has been one of the year’s top comedy performers and fell 48% to an estimated $1.2M giving Universal a superb $145.1M to date. The low-cost $30M production should finish its domestic run with just under $150M. Everyone finally has seen “Knocked Up”, it was certainly the success story of the summer. Sony’s Lindsay Lohan horror flick “I Know Who Killed Me” bowed to an estimated $3.4M from 1,320 theaters for a weak $2,576 average. The star’s recent arrests put the nail in the coffin for the film’s release, and its a bomb.

Overseas, “The Simpsons Movie” was just as powerful, grossing an additional $96M from 71 territories, according to estimates, putting the global at a whopping $168M.

Weekend Box Office
1. “The Simpsons Movie,” $71.9 million.

2. “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry,” $19.1 million.

3. “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” $17.1 million.

4. “Hairspray,” $15.6 million.

5. “No Reservations,” $11.8 million.

Full Box Office Chart

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