Black Sheep @ The Box Office

For the second week in a row, the Will Ferrell led animated film, MEGAMIND, leads the box office. And for the second year in a row, Denzel Washington makes a train movie that misses out on coming in on the first track.

UNSTOPPABLE is apparently a bit of an exaggeration. The Tony Scott film pulled in a solid $23.5 million, pretty much on par with the first weekend take of last summer's THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123, also directed by Scott. Washington however saw a much stronger debut with Janurary's THE BOOK OF ELI, which opened with about $10 million more in a month known for low grosses. UNSTOPPABLE opened at number one on Friday but with the built-in family audience waiting for the actual weekend, MEGAMIND was easily able to pull ahead to take the crown.

The week's two other wide releases both opened to disappointing results. The Rachel McAdams vehicle, MORNING GLORY, was clearly hoping to capture some of the same love that was bestowed on similar demo skewed picture, IT'S COMPLICATED. A $12 million five-day start is about $14 million shy there. Still, a tepid reaction to a romantic comedy is not as tragic as a heavily uninterested reaction to a sci-fi thriller with high hopes. SKYLINE was unable to tap into the geek market that makes so many a film successful these days with it's $11.7 million start. Fortunately, its reported budget is just about $10 million so everything from here is space gravy, assuming such a thing exists.

Two well received platform releases continued strong expansions. Naomi Watts and Sean Penn reteam to see FAIR GAME increase over 65%, hitting $1.1 million on 175 screens. Danny Boyle could be poised to see another hit, as 127 HOURS added 18 screens for a grand total of 22 and saw a 77% increase and a $20K+ per screen average. I don't see the film finding as much Oscar love as his Best Picture winner, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, but James Franco's personal buzz and the intrigue created by more people requiring medical attention at intense screenings should guarantee continued interest for some time to come.

NEXT WEEK: Russell Crowe hopes recent attention in adult fare will spoil over to his latest excursion, THE NEXT THREE DAYS on 2500+ screens. Look for the Black Sheep interview with director, Paul Haggis, to follow next weekend as well. Crowe might get lucky considering all the kids will be elsewhere, with HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (PART ONE) opening on over 4000+ screens.

Source: Box Office Mojo