HOLLYWOOD - Three beautiful private detectives knocked the mean, green machine out of competition at the box office this weekend as the mega-hyped action sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle took the No. 1 title with $38 million.*Despite a colossal advertising and marketing blitz, the girl-power pic's debut box office take fell short of the original Charlie's Angels movie, which made $40.1 million when it bowed Nov. 3, 2000. And although $38 million is a handsome hunk of change, Full Throttle failed to hit the summer blockbuster's new gold standard: the $50 million benchmark.
The Hulk, meanwhile, plummeted a monstrous 70 percent in its second week, but its $18.4 million take was enough to place the comic book actioner in second place. Combined with last week's take, The Hulk becomes the tenth film released in 2003 to cross the $100 million mark.
The summer's mainstay movie, the animated hit Finding Nemo, floated into third place with $13.8 million, while the horror thriller 28 Days Later debuted right behind it with $9.7 million. The Jim Carrey comedy vehicle Bruce Almighty rounded out the Top Five with $6.2 million.
The Top 10 movies this weekend grossed an estimated $111.2 million, down a little more than 15 percent from last year, making this the third down weekend in a row compared to 2002.
THE TOP TEN
Sony Picture's PG-13-rated Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle debuted in first place at the box office this weekend with an ESTIMATED $38 million at 3,459 theaters. Its per theater average of $10,986 was the highest of any film opening wide this week.
This time around, the angels are assigned to retrieve two stolen titanium rings, which contain valuable encrypted information revealing the new identities of every person in the Federal Witness Protection Program. The threesome must find the rings before the thief sells the information to the top mob families around the world.
Directed by McG, it stars Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Bernie Mac.
Universal Pictures' PG-13 The Hulk morphed into second place in its second week with an ESTIMATED $18.4 million (-70%) at 3,660 theaters (+40 theaters, $5,008 per theater). Its cume is approximately $100.2 million.
Directed by Ang Lee, it stars Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott and Nick Nolte.
Buena Vista/Disney and Pixar Animation Studios' G-rated computer-animated feature Finding Nemo fell a spot to third place in its fifth week with an ESTIMATED $13.8 million (-34%) at 3,404 theaters (-71 theaters; $4,166 per theater). Its cume is approximately $253.9 million.
Directed and co-written by Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton, it features the voices of Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe and Brad Garrett.
Though it played on a third fewer theaters than the big-studio flicks, Fox Searchlight's R-rated sci-fi thriller 28 Days Later still opened solidly in fourth place with an ESTIMATED $9.7 million at 1,260 theaters with a strong $7,722 per theater average. The pic cost only $8 million to make.
In this contemporary thriller, a fast-spreading virus that causes human rage on the people it infects is accidentally released from a British research facility.
Directed by Danny Boyle, it stars Cillian Murphy, Naomi Harris, Brendan Gleeson and Megan Burns.
Universal Pictures' PG-13 Bruce Almighty dropped a rung to fifth place in its sixth week with an ESTIMATED $6.2 million (-37%) at 2,671 theaters (-403 theaters; $3,231 per theater). Its cume is approximately $221.3 million.
Directed by Tom Shadyac, it stars Jim Carrey, Jennifer Aniston and Morgan Freeman.
*Box office estimates provided by Exhibitor Relations, Inc.