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Top stories submitted and voted on from Propeller.

'Who' Is Tops at the Box Office

Posted: 2008-03-24 13:17:51

Filed Under: Movie News

LOS ANGELES (March 23) - Audiences are still listening to Horton and his Who pals.

"Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who," 20th Century Fox's animated adaptation of the beloved children's book, remained the top movie for a second-straight weekend with $25.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Featuring the voices of Jim Carrey and Steve Carell, the movie raised its 10-day total to $85.5 million.

"Horton" fended off a rush of new movies opening over Easter weekend.

Lionsgate's "Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns," about a single mom who connects with previously unknown kin at her late father's funeral, opened in second place with $20 million.

It was the latest success for writer-director and co-star Perry, whose past hits for Lionsgate include "Madea's Family Reunion" and "Why Did I Get Married?" Shot on modest budgets, Perry's movies play to a built-in fan base.

"You kind of know what you're going to get with Tyler Perry, and that's a good thing," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "You want to be in business with this guy because he's going to make you money every time."

This Week in Pop Culture

Sept. 24, 2005: Ashton Kutcher, the star of such epic films as 'Dude, Where's My Car?' and 'The Butterfly Effect,' marries Kabbalist cougar Demi Moore in Beverly Hills, before roughly 100 friends and family, including Moore's ex-husband, Bruce Willis. (OK!/AP)
Sept. 26, 1957: Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' returns to Broadway, this time as Leonard Bernstein's 'West Side Story.' The retelling of the classic love story will run for 734 performances and produce such classic songs as 'Somewhere' and 'America.' (Everett Collection)
Sept. 29, 1984: With 'Let's Go Crazy' joining both the album and film 'Purple Rain' at No. 1, Prince becomes only the second artist to simultaneously top the song, album and movie charts in the U.S. (Everett Collection)
Sept. 27, 1954: 'The Tonight Show,' hosted by Steve Allen, makes its television debut. The show will become the second-longest running entertainment program in TV history, trailing only 'Guiding Light.' (Bettmann/Corbis)
Sept. 26, 1955: Debbie Reynolds weds crooner Eddie Fisher, a union that will last until Fisher falls under the spell of Elizabeth Taylor four years later. Luckily, the couple is together long enough to produce son Todd Fisher and daughter, Carrie "Princess Leia" Fisher. (WireImage.com/LucasFilms/ZUMA)
Sept. 30, 2006: Love is in the air as Amanda Peet marries screenwriter David Benioff in New York City, while 1,348 miles away, Isaac Hanson, the eldest brother from the band Hanson, weds Nicole Dufresne in Tulsa, Okla. (Getty/WireImage.com)
Sept. 29, 2005: Two weeks after photos of her doing lines of cocaine are splashed across the front page of the British tabloid the Daily Mirror, supermodel Kate Moss checks into the $4,000-a-night Meadows Clinic in Wickenberg, Ariz., where she is said tostay for 30 days. (Getty Images)
Sept. 25, 1990: Underwhelmed by drummer Chad Channing, Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic of Nirvana invite Dave Grohl to join the band. Later that year they record the landmark album 'Nevermind.' (WireImage.com)
Sept. 29, 2001: Jennifer Lopez marries dancer Cris Judd, whom she'd met on the set of her video for 'Love Don't Cost a Thing.' The union will begin to sour when she is handed a bouquet of flowers from Ben Affleck while Judd and the paparazzi look on at the opening of Madre's, her restaurant in Pasadena, Calif. (Getty Images)
Sept. 26, 2003: Singer Robert Palmer,former frontman for the band Power Station, dies of a heart attack in Paris at the age of 54. (Retna)

"Shutter," 20th Century Fox's fright flick about a newlywed couple tormented by a spirit whose image appears in their photos, opened at No. 3 with $10.7 million.

Just behind it at No. 4 was Owen Wilson's comedy "Drillbit Taylor," which pulled in $10.2 million. The Paramount release stars Wilson as a laid-back homeless guy who signs on as bodyguard for three bullied teenage nerds.

The acclaimed "Under the Same Moon," a border tale about a Mexican boy trying to reunite with his mother in the United States, was No. 10 with $2.6 million, a record opening weekend for a Spanish-language film. Released by Fox Searchlight and the Weinstein Co., the movie has taken in $3.3 million since opening Wednesday and also took in $1.7 million in Mexico, where it debuted this weekend.

"Under the Same Moon" surpassed the previous Spanish-language record set by "Ladron Que Roba a Ladron," which opened with $1.6 million last Labor Day weekend.

Both movies opened in far more theaters - "Under the Same Moon" at 266, "Ladron" at 340 - than typical Spanish-language films, which generally debut in a handful of cinemas before gradually expanding to wider release if they click with movie-goers.

"We thought this was a movie that could play as a commercial movie, not as an arthouse movie, to Spanish-language audiences," said Peter Rice, Fox Searchlight president.

The movie started mainly in theaters catering to Spanish speakers. But it also enjoyed strong word-of-mouth publicity in cinemas dominated by English-language crowds, where business picked up strongly over the course of the weekend, said Weinstein Co. co-founder Harvey Weinstein, whose had found success with foreign-language films such as "Cinema Paradiso" and "Amelie" when he ran Miramax.

Fox Searchlight and the Weinstein Co. plan to gradually roll "Under the Same Moon" out to more theaters in the coming weeks.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who," $25.1 million.

2. "Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns," $20 million.

3. "Shutter," $10.7 million.

4. "Drillbit Taylor," $10.2 million.

5. "10,000 B.C.", $8.7 million.

6. "Never Back Down," $4.9 million.

7. "College Road Trip," $4.6 million.

8. "The Bank Job," $4.1 million.

9. "Vantage Point," $3.8 million.

10. "Under the Same Moon," $2.6 million.

On the Net:

http://www.mediabynumbers.com

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

2008-03-23 14:02:20

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